Dudamel even whips up grade-schoolers

When General Motors called to ask about my "Slob service," I didn’t take it personally.  Still, as a longtime Saab loyalist, I can’t say that I’m overjoyed that my tax dollars are needed to bail out the bunglers in Detroit who took over the once imaginative Swedish make a few years ago and have systematically devalued it.

I no longer expect to drive a new Saab on the road to a better future.  I do, however, insist on a better future, like the one I saw at the EXPO Center on Saturday morning.  The American dream exists if we want it and if we are not so stupid that we throw away all our money on the things that don’t work rather than fund the things that work brilliantly.

At 10:30 a.m., Gustavo Dudamel showed up at the downtown recreation center to spend an hour rehearsing the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.  YOLA was formed a year ago by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in partnership with the Harmony Project and the Department of Recreation and Parks, on the model of El Sistema, the music education program in Venezuela that puts instruments in the hands of disadvantaged children.  The kids in YOLA range in age from 6 to 9.  They live within a 5-mile radius of the Expo Center. They are given instruments, instruction and an orchestra rehearsal space. In return, they sign a contract agreeing to show up and practice.  Most of the kids are Latino or African American.

As is well known, Dudamel, who will become music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in October, is a product of the government-funded Venezuelan system.  When you have 250,000 children in youth orchestras around the country, you might find a genius.

In the pairs of programs he conducted with the Israel Philharmonic and his soon-to-be L.A. band during the last two weeks, the 27-year-old phenomenon demonstrated a musical command -- and yes, genius -- that even some of us who have watched him closely over the last four years were not quite prepared for.  The level of audience excitement just kept rising, concert after concert.  By Sunday afternoon, with a final overpowering performance of Strauss’ “Alpine Symphony,” Disney Hall could hardly contain the commotion.

But witnessing Dudamel instruct the kids moved me most.  Working on the triumphant Finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, he kept asking for more.  He said he wanted an earthquake.  He demonstrated how phrases should rise in intensity.  He told these fledgling players to play with pride.

Turning to a timpanist who was barely taller than his drums, Dudamel showed the boy how to hit the skins as if he were dribbling a basketball.  I want 10,000 times more, Dudamel said with a huge grin on his face.  Suddenly the timid timpanist was no longer timid.

Dudamel reminded the trumpets that they can easily cover the strings, and encouraged them to do so.  “We have to use the power of our body to play,” he said, as he urged more and more ego.

He taught the strings a lesson in beauty.  He asked the whole orchestra to sing a Beethoven tune.  The players did -- and beautifully.  Dudamel stood for a minute, with his hand over his heart, a look of bliss on his face.  They then played with a new appreciation.

There was a lot of laughter, but Dudamel was also demanding.  Real work was done, and some real Beethoven was the reward.  Next year -- Disney Hall, he told them. He insists that he means it.

YOLA is meant to serve as a model in community, and that was exactly what it felt like.  The mood in the room was one of heartwarming rapport -- among the students as well as between the students and their teachers, who sat in the orchestra, coaching and encouraging. The children high-fived one another when they got things right.

Over a two-week period, Dudamel revealed an extraordinary expertise in a wide range of music.  He conducted symphonies by Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn from memory (as he did the enormous “Alpine”).  He proved a sensitive accompanist for soloists.  Even the pianist Rudolph Buchbinder caught a bit of the Dudamel bug and didn’t phone in Mozart’s A-major Piano Concerto on Sunday afternoon the way he had Thursday.

Dudamel also revealed himself an exceptionally persuasive champion of contemporary music.  His exquisite dynamic control and ability to create plush textures produced unforgettable performances of the works of two great Hungarian modernists, György Ligeti and György Kurtág. Best of all, Dudamel rescued Leonard Bernstein’s late Concerto for Orchestra from unjust neglect.

Until two weeks ago, comparing Dudamel to Bernstein seemed to me dangerous.  Let a 27-year-old be a 27-year-old, and let’s not get too carried away.  But with YOLA, let’s get carried away.  As an educator, Dudamel is, without question, the next Bernstein.

You know what’s coming next.  YOLA is not expensive, but it costs something and it must grow. The interest is there. Wonderful teachers are there. Dudamel will be an Angeleno before the year is out.  You can put a monetary value on bailouts, but not on this. If you don’t believe me, YOLA has a public concert on Feb. 21 at Santee High School.

-- Mark Swed

NOTE: Los Angeles Times photographer Lawrence K. Ho spent a good amount of time with the YOLA musicians a few months ago and produced this audio/video essay.

Photo credit: Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

Comments

[Pauline Bennett]

32 years ago Zubin Mehta brought members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to my middle school in "pre-gentrification" Venice Beach to play Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It was the only professional-level music concert I heard live until I was in my mid-twenties and working. Some of the players visited my middle school class in "Beginning Orchestra" and listened to us slaughter some poor little innocent piece of music . They even had the kindness to speak to us as equals in our pursuit of music and to applaud with a straight face. When some of us made it into the Area D Honor Orchestra and Band the next year, Mr. Mehta came to our concert at Dorothy Chandler Pavillion and took a photo with a few of my friends. I was hooked on the best drug of all: I became the world's most unlikely classical music junkie . If Mr. Dudamel can do as much for the youngsters in YOLA I can promise him that the young musicians of YOLA will remember his kindness for life. Bravo for focusing on the long neglected area of music education so early in your tenure here in Los Angeles.

This is great news!

[Tatevik Simonian]

This article gave me chills~
I sense a new life for the city known to many as an "arts wasteland," and hope through programs like YOLA, Los Angeles can be the world's newest cultural darling. Pat on the back, Angelenos!

[Dr. Diana Hollinger]

I am thrilled that Dudamel has come to Los Angeles, and I commend the LA Philt for making this quick and decisive decision. I first saw him in Caracas several years ago while working on my doctoral dissertation on El Sistema, before all the "Dudamania." I found it difficult to articulate what it is they were doing in Venezuela, precisely because it is so "systematic," so interconnected and networked in a way we are not in the United States. We certainly have well-qualified and passionate teachers, good orchestras, and probably reach more of our children through public school music than most countries in the world, but the thing that Dr. Abreu has managed to do through El Sistema is put a network into place for all levels and abilities, training musicians, teachers, administrators, instrument-makers, special educators, conductors, social activists, archivists, recording-artists, and on and on. He has packaged it so that it makes sense and garners support from everybody (who wants to take a violin out the hands of children?), and has generalized best-practice models so that efforts are not duplicated. I would venture to say we have as many individuals in California doing the good work that they do in Venezuela, but we are duplicating efforts, are regionalized, do not work across education and professional lines, and are not yet united. But we can!!! Bravo to this beginning.