Imagine a bizarre alternate universe where audiences go wild for chamber music and a performance of a Mozart clarinet quintet is punctuated with whoops and hollers you might expect at a rock concert. Well, that’s the kind of reception that Gustavo Dudamel is getting in his new hometown of Los Angeles, where he will begin his reign as music director of the LA Philharmonic later this year. In the City of Angels, it’s called Dudamania.
On this occasion, the twenty-eight-year-old Venezuelan conductor is, unusually, playing second violin for an evening of chamber music.
His name on the bill is enough to ensure that Walt Disney Hall is packed to the rafters with fans whose lack of classical etiquette (clapping between movements) is anathema to purists, but gold dust for concert houses in search of new audiences.
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, the New York Philharmonic is getting ready for its new music director, Alan Gilbert, who’ll be taking over next season. Like Dudamel, the new maestro is being celebrated for his precocious musical talent: at forty-two years old he is one of the old orchestra’s youngest leaders. But don’t expect whoops and hollers at Avery Fisher Hall any time soon. Gilbert works his magic with finesse and a quiet confidence, with none of the razzle-dazzle of his West Coast colleague.
The comparisons were inevitable. When the nation’s two biggest cities announced their new conductors (“so young,” cooed the classical commentators), a jolt of excitement rippled through the music world. Dudamel had already electrified audiences with his guest conducting, not only with major orchestras around the world, but with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which champions talented young musicians in Venezuela. And Gilbert’s more than forty guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic since his debut in 2001 made the orchestra sparkle with a different energy — lush strings, bold colors and clarity. On the podium he’s anything but the grand old maestro of the high art tradition. And his presence holds the possibility of more innovation — a dirty word in some circles.
“The past two music directors have not moved that orchestra forward at all,” says Mark Swed, the classical music critic for the LA Times, referring to maestros Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel. “But Alan has obviously started to get the machine to move a little bit further.”
When I first met Alan Gilbert last year, he was dressed in jeans and sipping a cocktail at the relatively new downtown club Le Poisson Rouge, where — so the tagline goes — art and alcohol mix. It’s a club that provides a venue for the progressive end of classical music as well as a stage for sophisticates from the indie music scene. On this occasion, we were watching the Israeli pianist David Greilsammer rattle through a program of solo piano fantasies featuring works by Cage, Janáček and Ligeti, as well as Bach and Brahms. Surely it was a good sign to see the maestro-designate of the New York Philharmonic kicking back south of 14th Street?
“There’s a lot that can happen in a traditional concert,” says Gilbert, reflecting on his excursion to the Bleecker Street club. “But we are living in a new age when people can get their information in a new way. It would be unrealistic and silly to ignore the possibilities of new modes of delivery, new contexts.”
So Gilbert is doing what he can to bring a touch of downtown to Lincoln Center. Inevitably this will ruffle a few feathers at the traditionally conservative Philharmonic, which has been reluctant to get too radical too fast lest the subscribers flee in horror. But Gilbert’s inaugural season will see more twentieth-century and contemporary fare than usual. The opening night gala on September 16 features Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique but also the world premiere of a specially commissioned clarinet concerto by Magnus Lindberg, who will be the orchestra’s composer-in-residence. And Gilbert hopes to lure new — dare we say, younger — audiences with Contact, a new-music series that will consist of world premieres of New York Philharmonic commissions from composers such as Nico Muhly, Arlene Sierra and Marc-André Dalbavie.
“There are only two kinds of music, good and bad,” says Gilbert, paraphrasing Duke Ellington. (He’s a huge jazz fan.) “I would like to achieve a state of affairs where simply putting something on a program means it’s worth listening to, whether it’s contemporary or not.”
In this regard, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is well ahead of New York. The new season under Dudamel will feature the premieres of nine commissioned works; the U.S. premiere of a Louis Andriessen opera, La Commedia; residency by the British composer Thomas Adès; and the long-running Green Umbrella series, which celebrates contemporary classical — that is, music by composers who are still alive and kicking. Speaking of which, composer John Adams has been appointed creative chair of the orchestra and will oversee the world premiere of his LA-inspired City Noir at the opening night gala. And no one’s blinking an eye at all this brand-new fare.
