Arts
The Dudamel Phenomenon in Los Angeles
- Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel has been called a "breath of fresh air."
January 7, 2010 7:36 AM
When The New York Times was preparing a recent series of stories on new Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel, they called upon three USC experts to help put the young Venezuelan sensation into perspective.
Martin Kaplan, director of the USC Annenberg School’s Norman Lear Center, which looks at the impact of media and entertainment on society, commented on the marketing campaign surrounding Dudamel’s introduction to Los Angeles audiences.
“He’s a genuine star,” Kaplan said. “He’s young. He has amazing hair. He has a great back story. He has a fantastic name. He’s the dude!”
The “back story” refers to Dudamel’s meteoric rise within Venezuela’s El Sistema, a network of youth orchestras created in poor neighborhoods. Dudamel had risen to lead the system’s “crown jewel,” the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, in Caracas.
USC Radio president Brenda Barnes commented on a Web feature that accompanied this story. “I think he warrants a splashy introduction,” Barnes said. “Everyone who has known him through the years and has followed his career says he’s the kind of talent that comes around once in a generation.
“To have that talent in a young man who comes from an environment in Venezuela where the poorest of the poor were learning classical music, and to have him be a Latino in a city with a great Latino population, really makes him the perfect person for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.”
In a subsequent story, Larry Livingston, chairman of instrumental conducting at the USC Thornton School of Music, called Dudamel a thrilling “breath of fresh air,” but cautioned against rushing to judge his musical contribution too soon.
“Ultimately the measure is going to be: Can he do Brahms 10 years from now?” Livingston said.
USC Media Relations worked with The New York Times to place faculty in the series, which included an audio interview and slide show. To download the stories, go to http://uprserver.usc.edu/nrpics/nytdudamel.pdf
TAGS: music
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