Linda Ronstadt hails Gustavo Dudamel in testimony on Capitol Hill

In a remarkable testimony by Linda Ronstadt to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment & Related Agencies Tuesday, the pop singer made an impassioned plea for government support of the arts.  And Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's soon-to-be music director, was her poster boy. 

Ronstadt's complete written testimony can be found on the Americans for the Arts website, but here is what she said about Venezuela's El Sistema program, Dudamel and Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra L.A.

"In the United States, we spend millions on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments.  Learning to play music together does all this and more.

"José Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, the children’s music curriculum currently considered to be the best in the world, says this: 'An orchestra is a community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore, the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement. And what does the agreement of experience mean? Team practice, the practice of a group that recognizes itself as interdependent where one is responsible for others and the others are responsible for oneself. Agree on what? To create beauty.' ”

Turning to Dudamel, who is the most famous product of El Sistema, Ronstadt concluded (capitals are hers):

"...as you may know, there is a conductor of staggering talent who has been hailed as the next Leonard Bernstein. His name is Gustavo Dudamel and he has toured the United States and Europe with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra to ecstatic reviews. He joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic as their Music Director in the fall. Perhaps you have seen him featured on '60 Minutes' or in other national or international press. Here’s what matters to us today: this young conductor has a passion for music education because he knows its true power to alter the course of young lives. He was brought up in Venezuela in the extraordinary music education system that I mentioned earlier called El Sistema. It has existed for 35 years, and now reaches over 250,000 students and their families.

"A driving force in Dudamel’s life is to transform communities through participation in
music. He is leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA or Youth Orchestra L.A. project, which is designed to serve children who have the most need and the fewest resources.

"ACCESS TO QUALITY MUSIC EDUCATION SHOULD NOT BE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO
CAN AFFORD IT. THE BENEFITS ARE TOO GREAT.

"Today, children ages 7-16 in the urban core of Los Angeles receive free instruments, after-school music instruction and orchestra experience. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has already touched the lives of hundreds of children and their families and has plans to reach more. Imagine what can be accomplished if we support the arts, engage ‘at risk’ youth and help them succeed in school and in their lives. For ‘underserved’ families, indeed for all families, participation in music and the arts can help people reclaim and achieve the American Dream."

Ronstadt didn't mention that Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra will give a concert Monday night at Kennedy Center, which will include Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."  The concert is, of course, sold out, but tickets are still available for an afternoon opera dress rehearsal. I hope the new transparency in Washington includes making public who in government attends and who doesn't, so we will better know whom to reelect.

The other cities on this brief U.S. tour are Houston and Chicago.  For the rest of us, Dudamel and the Bolívars have just released an irresistible recording of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony on Deutsche Grammophon.

-- Mark Swed

UPDATE: An earlier version of the story said the new album was the Fourth Symphony.

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel leads the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2007.  Credit: Ringo H.W. Chiu / For the Los Angeles Times.

Photo: Linda Rondstadt waiting to testify before Congress. Credit: Associated Press.

Comments

[liza simone]

José Abreu won the TED Prize this year. The TED Prize seeks to expand El Sistima to the US and beyond. They are currently looking for partners to help make this happen. http://www.tedprize.org/jose-abreu/

[griddy]

i think they should link up with 99problems and support the music programs http://tinyurl.com/c5vtxk

[Elsie Parker]

Brava for Ms. Ronstadt! What a great day it will be when good music is taken as seriously in the USA as sports are.

[Brent Hudson]

Venezuela is a beautiful country with an amazing musical culture. It should remind us of what our country could be doing better.

So great to see Linda Ronstadt advocating thgovernment support of the arts. Linda, we love you.

B. Hudson

[Tone Mendoza]

Isn't this what we really want our own children to learn? Don't we want them to know what incredible accomplishments can come to pass by working together, especially on work they care about and respect?

Wouldn't it be life-changing if our Senators and Representatives could be like these kids in LA and like the ones playing in the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra for the past 35 years and know what can be gained from cooperation and teamwork, like these musicians are able to do?

Music really is magic.

[rose Jean Goddard]

Gratitude to Linda Ronstadt for hailing the new sensation from Venezuela, Gustavo "the Great", as claimed 0n 60 minutes way back in Feb. 2008. Capitol Hill take notice! How about starting YOLA music education in Chicago, et al? Put down your guns and pick up your instruments!
Please, Mr. President - here is an idea that you will want to consider.....
Rosejean Goddard Ojai CA

[peter]

Ronstadt: "My older brother was the only one who graduated from high school"…

Although Linda has received an honorary doctor of music degree form Berklee College of Music. Few of her fans realize that Linda was a very young High School drop out. She attended the University of Arizona for one semester in 1964 and turned 17 latter that year "july". Linda says that she was in LA by age 17. And the rest is now an incredible successful history.

Family Weekly January 8, 1984
Ronstadt: "Oh, she was wonderful. [She died two years ago.] All she hoped for, I think, was that one of her four children would be a scholar, and we're not scholars. She taught us all to read before we went to school - thank goodness. We never would have learned otherwise. My older brother was the only one who graduated from high school"… http://www.ronstadt-linda.com/famwkly.htm