NEW YORK (AP) — Gustavo Dudamel jumped up and down on FAO Schwarz’s giant keyboard during his first trip to New York as a 14-year-old.
He’s returned three decades later with far more numerous and somewhat smaller instruments at his disposal as music director of the New York Philharmonic.
“It’s a lot about that bubbling energy, this city,” he said this week at his office in David Geffen Hall.
Now 45, Dudamel took over as music and artistic director last week after 17 celebrated seasons leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is the 27th man to head the New York orchestra, following luminaries that included Gustav Mahler, Willem Mengelberg, Bruno Walter, Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez.
A product of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education program, Dudamel was a violinist with the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela when he played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in October 1995 and traveled with the orchestra by bus for a concert at the United Nations.
“They said we were going to cross a tunnel that is under the river, and we were: `Like, what?’ That was kind of another world,” Dudamel said. “I remember before getting to the river, there were the Twin Towers. Then I saw Statue of Liberty, and then they took us to the U.N. And then they took us to the toy store. We were like in paradise.”
High-profile start mixing genres
Dudamel’s early schedule is a whirlwind. An opening concert at Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 10 was hosted by actor Liev Schreiber and featured Lizzo, St. Vincent, Joaquina and Aaron Tveit. The celebration continued with an after-party high atop Manhattan in the Rainbow Room.
“Gustavo Dudamel is not an easy person to describe,” Schreiber told the concert crowd. “Imagine if you added a teaspoon of Billy Joel, an ounce of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a cup of Tito Puente to a dash of Barbra Streisand.”
Dudamel shifted downtown the next day for a Sounds of Remembrance performance at the World Trade Center arts center for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Music belongs so profoundly to moments like this,” Dudamel said softly. “Music cannot undo what happened. But when words can no longer reach where we need them to go, sometimes music can. It can give sorrow a voice.”
Subscription concerts started this week with Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, which he conducted for his New York Philharmonic debut on Nov. 29, 2007.
“There are not borders. There are bridges,” Dudamel said. “A symphonic orchestra can also be immersed in a pop, folk, musicals. We are all in the same space. I think that is the message.”
Just a month into his tenure, the orchestra embarks Oct. 9 on a two-week, 10-show European tour, then returns in November to Carnegie Hall, its home from 1891 to 1962, for concert performances of Puccini’s “Tosca.”
“There’s this chemistry and passion that he brings to the table, which is infectious,” said Sherry Sylar, associate principal oboe since 1984. “When he’s rehearsing, he addresses the orchestra as `My dears.’ He’ll start to give you a constructive criticism, but it’s always with that as the address to the orchestra. Nobody has ever done that before. It just sort of changes the way you accept the criticism or suggestions.”
Celebrity beyond classical music
While he usually has a car with a driver, Dudamel also walks around New York and takes the subway when there is heavy traffic, getting recognized at times.
With his dark mop of black hair and Giorgio Armani conducting suits, Dudamel is so much the image of a 21st century conductor that Gael García Bernal’s character for the “Mozart in the Jungle” television series was patterned after him.
Still, he is somewhat traditional: He prefers listening to music on vinyl records and frequented The Record Collector on Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles for additions to his collection. He thinks his first record was of Daniel Barenboim leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s “1812” overture.
“I love the sound of the LPs,” Dudamel said. “I destroyed some of them because I was stopping, because I was rehearsing conducting. My father was so angry.”
Dudamel also maintains a home in Madrid and remains undecided whether to seek an apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, near the orchestra’s Lincoln Center home, or in the Chelsea neighborhood downtown. He’s become a fan of some of the city’s top restaurants, mentioning Cosme, Milos, Mercado Little Spain and Casa Ora, renowned for its Venezuelan cuisine.
Repositioning the orchestra, on stage as well as commercially
Ticket revenue for this season has increased by 8% through the same time last year and seats sold in September are up 20% vs. 2025. Subscription package revenue is at $12.4 million, rising from $11.3 million.
One of Dudamel’s first changes was to move the second violin section from his left to his right, opposite the first violins, and to switch the double basses from his right to his left — a formation he used in LA. He’s shifted the entire orchestra closer to the front of the stage at David Geffen Hall and had their seats bunched closer together.
“It feels like giant chamber music,” violinist Alina Ming Kobialka said. “It’s nice to have the brass and not 500 miles away from us.”
Dudamel has a five-year contract and will spend about 15 weeks with the orchestra each season. He began his first rehearsal on Labor Day, Sept. 7, with a short speech to the musicians, some of whom played in his New York Philharmonic debut.
Dudamel recalled then music director Lorin Maazel took the unusual step to personally introduce him at his first rehearsal in 2007. Dudamel was aware of the orchestra’s reputation then as a difficult ensemble.
“I was very afraid,” he remembered thinking. “I’m going to be shaking for the very first few minutes. But at the end it was such a beautiful and wonderful journey,”
