Another young Venezuelan gets his foot on the maestro ladder

Another young Venezuelan gets his foot on the maestro ladder

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norman lebrecht

July 25, 2011

I hear word that Diego Matheuz has been appointed principal conductor at La Fenice in Venice.

Diego Matheuz

He’s 27, Venezuelan, another product of the Sistema. Here‘s the agent’s biog.

That Dude, he’s starting to breed.

Comments

  • R.L. Fletcher says:

    Diego Matheuz, besides being a product of El Sistema, is also an alum of LA Phil’s prestigious Dudamel Fellowship program, started when Dudamel assumed the Music Directorship of that orch. Now in its 3rd year,
    this program is a powerful career launcher for young conductors as proven by Mr. Mathuez’s success.

    Problem is, although the Dudamel Fellowship program is run by LA Phil, which receives its subsidy from US donors & grants, they appear to be catagorically excluding young US conductors from admission to the program. To my knowledge, in the 3 yrs. of its existence, they have accepted only one US candidate, while generously promoting the careers & providing valuable training for young conductors of many other countries.

    The 2011-12 Dudamel Fellows have recently been named, and there is not one US conductor among them.

    There are scores of talented, qualified young US conductors who qualify for this program. They are being overlooked in favor of foreign candidates, many of whom, not surprisingly, are from Venezuela If the LA Phil
    wishes to establish a career launching program for talented graduates of El Sistema, then perhaps they should be seeking financial subsidy from Dr. Abreu of Venezuela & not the good people of Los Angeles, California. .

    • Andrey says:

      > they appear to be catagorically excluding young US conductors from admission to the program.

      Well, you, guys, have been doing the same for ages in Tanglewood and other US training programs, haven’t you? 😉

  • Rob Weir says:

    I’m looking forward to meeting and hearing Diego in a couple of weeks at the Saito Kinen Matsumoto Festival in Japan. He’ll be conducting a program of Tchaikovsky and Bartok with Peter Serkin as soloist. Another very young Venezuelan (18) conducting talent that I crossed paths with this summer in Mexico is Ilyich Rivas. He will be on the radar soon, I am sure, having already had exposure through the Baltimore and Atlanta Symphonies in the US, Lucerne, with the You Tube Symphony in Sydney, The Youth Orchestra of the Americas (where I met him) etc. We need this crop of talent. Seems to have been a bit of a void, of late, in the really good up and comers so this may satisfy that. Here’s hoping anyway!

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