Gustavo Dudamel conducts Beethoven’s “Eroica” Gustavo Dudamel conducts Beethoven’s “Eroica”

“I chose a different path”
The composer Gabriela Ortiz

Gabriela Ortiz is one of Latin America’s most important composers. Her works are brimming with energy, deeply moving and remarkable for their sheer beauty of sound. All these qualities can be heard in her ballet score Revolución diamantina. Gustavo Dudamel conducts the work with the Berliner Philharmoniker in mid June.

Biography

Gustavo Dudamel

When Gustavo Dudamel became Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, he was still relatively near the beginning of his extraordinary career. After many successful years there, he will move in the summer of 2026 to the same position at the New York Philharmonic. In his conducting style, he combines precision with emotional intensity – and that far beyond the traditional realms of concert and opera: Dudamel is involved in film productions and crossover projects and has appeared, for example, alongside Billie Eilish and at the Super Bowl. In this way, he continually expands his sphere of influence – and that of classical music itself: “Music gives individuals a powerful sense of meaning – one that can be put to work for the common good. When you give a child an instrument, you give them an identity. You remind them that they have a voice, and that their voice matters,” he wrote in the New York Times in 2024. His own experience speaks through these words: Dudamel grew up in modest circumstances in Venezuela and began as a violinist in the youth program El Sistema. Since the age of 19 he has been chief conductor of Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, and winning the first Mahler Conducting Competition in 2004 opened international doors for him. Since his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Waldbühne in 2008, he has enjoyed a close relationship with the orchestra.