Gustavo Dudamel: I’m having big thoughts about society
OrchestrasThe incoming New York Philharmonic conductor was invited to contribute a ‘Turning Points’ article to the local newspaper. Probably ghosted, and ever so slightly pretentious. He begins:
Lately I have been thinking about the relationship between the individual and society — particularly how to balance our personal needs with those of the larger community. This question is especially pressing in the current moment. As individuals, many of us feel alienated, isolated and helpless, struggling to find our place, shouting to be heard, running just to stand still. As a society, we are more divided than ever, siloed by social media and manipulated by misinformation, our democracies threatened by increasingly polarized political worldviews. Sometimes it is hard to imagine a world where we can live together in harmony. But my experience working with orchestras around the world gives me hope, and I truly believe that the arts can show us a better way forward.
In many ways, the orchestra is the perfect metaphor for the relationship between the individual and society…
Still with me?
Read on here.
There’s also a Spanish version.
He is not alone. I also have a lot of questions about elections and society. In Venezuela.
Maybe he will meet in New York City with members of Tren de Aragua in New York, to get their views on society’s problems.
Hate to break the news but composers didn’t create their works so that years, decades, centuries later people like the Dude could interpret them to “make a difference” or “make a better world”; or so that folks like him could hide behind such pronouncements in order to secure their paychecks given the incremental societal ennui and disinterest in such works, with no end in sight.
What a nasty sentiment. Almost as if you hated classical music. Did Dudamel actually say “make a difference” or “make a better world”? (The whole article is behind a paywall.)
The composers created their works, in part, to make a living, just like normal people.
Composers wrote their best works because of an inner urge, and wanted to have them shared with the world, not to improve the world.
Many pieces were written back in the day as a form of protest. Protest music didn’t start in the 60’s. It’s been going on since the 1700’s if not earlier. What he means is that music is the mortar of humanity; no matter who you love, your socio/economic situation, your race, or even who you voted for, When we listen to “Adagio for Strings” (Samuel Barber), we ALL feel the same thing. Music can bring people together.
Most people, listening to Adagio for Strings would be baffled and bored.
Only a few wierd people (like me) who like classical music would feel anything else. And they are very unlikely to exactly match your thoughts and feelings when listening to it.
When I have to listen to classical music I get restless and my thoughts wander to Pli selon Pli
Sally
Given that we happily live in a world where Taylor Alison Swift and Béla Viktor János Bartók can co-exist, your comment simply comes across as bitter, toxic and misanthropic.
I suggest that he sticks to his day job and leaves thinking to those better qualified.
“my experience working with orchestras around the world gives me hope”
Oh yes? Only if you keep your eyes and ears firmly shut.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/27/venezuela-me-too-yo-te-creo-sexual-abuse-el-sistema-youth-orchestra/
This article looks to be an Opinion piece, not a reported news article – I’m not entirely sure what the difference in reporting standards is between the two, but thought it was important to point that out, given the accusations that the piece makes. It’s also worth noting that the New York Times, New York Review of Books, and Los Angeles Times all deeply criticize the journalistic integrity of the author’s reporting when they reviewed his book on El Sistema.
Hi Jeff, perhaps you’d be interested to know that after the article in the WP, journalists from Germany, Spain, Venezuela, and Argentina did their own, independent reporting on this story and published their own articles on it, confirming it.
El Sistema made a public statement acknowledging the issue, as did Sistema Scotland and Sistema England.
You can find more details here: https://geoffbakermusic.co.uk/2021/07/02/media-coverage-of-el-sistema-sexual-abuse-allegations/
As to your other point, yes, a few journalists were very unhappy with my book. It criticized the quality of most journalism, which had swallowed El Sistema’s self-mythologization hook line and sinker. Some journalists didn’t take this very well and opted to double down on their stance rather than take on board the new information. The trio that you mention made a number of dubious claims on the basis of little to no knowledge of Venezuelan realities, or indeed of academic research methods. (I’m not a journalist, so they could hardly have criticized my journalistic integrity.)
That’s all ancient history though. That was in 2014. The last decade has seen all the major claims of my book borne out by other research. If you’re interested in knowing more, there are lots of leads on this page: https://geoffbakermusic.co.uk/el-sistema-key-resources/
What you don’t see is that, after the initial furore died down in 2015, journalists from around the world started contacting me and interviewing me when they were writing stories about El Sistema, and that has continued ever since. I’ve lost count of the number of times this has happened. Even most journalists don’t take those initial hatchet-jobs seriously, and academic researchers certainly don’t.
“Probably ghosted”? How condescending. Is it because he is Venezuelan or because he is a conductor that you think him incapable of expressing his own thoughts?
Um, probably because Dudamel has been a public figure for some two decades and has never had anything other than clichés to say.
We should take an example from the past:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxh-o9ENW5o
Because he just learned English not that long ago and the academic/formal style of writing there is something that even few native speakers engage in any more.
“There’s also a Spanish version.” (see description). Most likely he wrote in his native language, and somebody translated it.
Exactly because Mr. Dudamel is Venezuelan. He has had years to have “big thoughts” on his birth country and government. Has he tried to express his political views to the broader world?
He has no obligation, except a moral one. (But morality is so over…)
When pressed a few years ago to make a stand for the people of Venezuela against their bus driver dictator, “The Dude” was silent initially and then less than courageous afterwards. He’s better off presenting and performing the music without commentary.
Something sounds like an autocracy in that final comment…
Maybe chamber music would be a better analogy there.
I’m a subscriber and am gifting a link that should get folks past the firewall for those interested. Cheers!
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/special-series/gustavo-dudamel-youth-orchestra.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fE4.fSLj.-wlSBA2496GA&smid=url-share
Who is stupid enough to ask Dudamel ‘s opinion on anything else than weather?
Art plays an important role in our lives. That’s not up for debate.
But please stop with the self-important claims that it can resolve political conflicts and bring about peace.
Just because conflicting people and nations share an interest in the same art form and will sit in a concert hall together for 2 hours together doesn’t mean they’ve resolved their difference or ever will.
I was particularly struck by this bit:
“Most importantly, the arts give us hope. They allow us to envision a brighter future for humanity, and to become the kind of citizens who will create that future. My country, Venezuela, is experiencing a challenging moment. Nevertheless, this summer, amid that turmoil, I stood on the stage of Carnegie Hall with the 170 young musicians of the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela and heard them play with love, joy, respect and, above all, hope.”
Saying that “Venezuela is experiencing a challenging moment” is a profound understatement. The country has only had two presidents, both strong men, for the last 22 years, with credible and clear evidence of elections being rigged. The country has been in an economic crisis since the 1980s with poverty rates getting substantially worse in the last 15 years.
What exactly has music ever done for Venezuela?
What does Dudamel think is going to happen to those young musicians when they go home? What does he think their adult lives will look like?
That “challenging” is from the same grammatical pool as Prince Andrew’s use of”unbecoming.”
The man is in an impossible position, whatever he does or does not do, is being considered wrong. He himself escaped an awful society and that means he has to pay for that. He is not responsible for the conditions in his homeland.
Gustavo Dudamel:
“My country, Venezuela, is experiencing a challenging moment. Nevertheless, this summer, amid that turmoil, I stood on the stage at Carnegie Hall with the 170 young musicians of the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela and heard them play with love, joy, respect and, above all, hope.”
Alternate ghost writer’s suggested edit:
“My country, Venezuela, has experienced two challenging decades leading to state failure and the exile of more than 8 million Venezuelans, thanks to my friends at the heart of the regime, like El Sistema board member Delcy Rodriguez and her brother Jorge – who likes to call me “hermano” on Twitter. Despite all that, this summer, amid the turmoil of Maduro’s blatantly stolen election just five days earlier, and the ensuing arrest of over one thousand protesters, I stood on the stage at Carnegie hall – and three other major US music venues – with 170 young cultural emissaries of the state-owned National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela, and heard them play with, above all, hope. Hope that the regime whose global soft power mission I have diligently and profitably served for nearly twenty years will, finally, collapse. The hope of a future in which music is uncoupled from its state-run propaganda mission. The hope that their families will be able to eat, and that they will not be forced to make journeys on foot to neighbouring countries to survive. Ah! Music! The power of music!”
Conclusion:
I guess the NY Phil PR department is keen to counter the picketing actions of the Human Rights Foundation, whose LED advertising trucks have been parked outside NYC concert halls since Maduro’s stolen election, whenever Mr. Dudamel performs. Are they concerned that the highly marketable, utopian vision of social harmony through music – as promoted globally by Venezuela’s state-owned youth orchestras – may be revealed for what it is? A highly profitable, highly effective mantra of far-Left cultural propaganda that seeks to omit and ignore all concomitant social and political contexts? I suspect so.
Dudamel may have been an emissary of soft power on behalf of the recent regimes (the ones that coincide with his adult life) of his native land. I do not know the precise nature or degree of his association with either the Chavez or Maduro governments.
But he is not the only prominent conductor to be associated with the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela. Sir Simon has conducted them more than once. There are probably others equally respectable.
And to treat them as emissaries of the government of Venezuela because of their public subsidy — an alien notion in the United States, I realise, but Mr. McElroy must be familiar with it from his earlier years — is to tar everything from the Royal Opera to the National Ballet of Canada and very much else — with being propagandists for their countries. I doubt very much that artists who work hard to perform Rigoletto or Giselle spend much time thinking about their governments, except perhaps to wish they had larger subsidies.
The kids are innocent, and they probably ARE full of hope, as well as excitement at appearing with their country’s most famous musical export (apologies to Mrs.McElroy). Dudamel’s entire youth was spent locked in music in Venezuela. He well may never have had a political thought in his life until some felt he was too cosy with the government of his native land, and was not a leading voice in the criticism of it when it began to go south. This at a time when he was struggling with his new international profile, and his English, and adapting to living in Europe and then the US.
On this website, artists are frequently criticised for airing their political views as if they mattered or carried any weight. I have argued against this as I feel one does not forfeit any rights of citizenship by choosing a profession that brings fame. But those rights include the right to stay out of it.
I understand and admire the vehemence articulated by Ms. Montero and her husband against the regimes that have done such damage to her country and its people. But I sometimes think that Gustavo Dudamel provides an easy target for blame for the deeds of people with whom he rarely if ever is in direct contact. As a graduate of El Sistema, he owes a lot to the very subsidies behind the NCSV, and the odd appearance at public events there under the governments then in place may only have been ways of saying thank you. He didn’t choose them, and I have never read of him defending them.
His comments on the events of recent years are perhaps insufficiently critical for some. But it is not his job, and quite possibly beyond his abilities, to articulate a political vision (if that article is anything to go by, it’s QED). I also am an expatriate, and have watched with distaste and occasionally horror some of the policies enacted in my native Scotland by the last two governments. But I live elsewhere, and have many other calls upon my time, and it is not the issue with which I burn from the time I wake up till when I go to sleep. I am not comparing the situations in Scotland to those of Venezuela, nor the demands upon me to those on Mr. Dudamel. Just saying that he should not be judged so harshly just because he does not choose to live his life in the same way as some of his fellow expats.
V.Lind,
As always, you provide counter-ballast which requires a reply, not out of any will to win the argument, but to provide further, deeper, and therefore consequential context for your consideration.
As you correctly state, I am very much a product of the European, state-funded model of arts administration. But this is where a crucial distinction must be made between state-funded and state-owned/controlled. Without making the distinction, we can not begin to look at the concept of mission, and my entire criticism of the role of the Venezuelan regime in Venezuela’s classical music culture relates to mission – the carefully designed mission of ideological influence and the exercising of soft power in the “western hemisphere”. It has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of state-funded arts and culture per se, for which I fully advocate in the day-to-day, while simultaneously exploring the benefits of private sector cooperations. (They are not mutually exclusive approaches, and can be mutually beneficial).
So, when the extraordinary Kirov came to London during the cold war, this state-owned ballet company was not sent as a peace offering or magnanimous gift. Just like the olympic athletes of the national sports mission, it was intended to project power through art; the power of the state to oversee collective projects that produced world-beating individual and group excellence – perfection, even – regardless of the methodology used to achieve it. The Stalinists perfected the art of cultural soft power, promoting collectivism as ethically virtuous, even while their country collapsed around them.
So, too, Venezuela. Since you refer to my wife – I try not to represent her, but my own views – I should remind you of her analogy of the flower, made in 2014 when she first published her criticism of Abreu’s and Dudamel’s complicity with the Chavez, and subsequently Maduro regimes. She spoke of Venezuela as a toxic quagmire, in the middle of which sits an oasis with a flower growing from it. Her point was that the oasis was no more immune from the imminent rising tide of state failure than the rest of the quagmire, and that the duty of every Venezuelan citizen was to fight to drain the swamp itself (sorry to echo a commonly used Trumpism – I am not a supporter). On that moral basis, she rejected compelling financial inducements and set aside her own self-interest to fight for her people, refusing to prioritise music and musicians above the interests of the millions of ordinary Venezuelans affected by the actions of a criminal regime.
And this is where it gets complicated. Not only did the regime destroy the country, as the communists destroyed Russia, but it subsumed El Sistema – the oasis – into a formal regime ministry and carefully orchestrated an international program of concerts and side-bar symposia to overtly extol the values of the Bolivarian Revolution itself. The optics of Dudamel leading the SBO at the UN Security Council in front of a giant portrait of Chavez, presented by propaganda minister Delcy Rodriguez to the assembly, belong to an entirely different level of cultural mission and international political influence than my former self singing the Barber of Seville at Irish Arts Council-funded Opera Ireland. Indeed, the sight and sound of SBO musicians, wearing Chavez’s rebranded flag, at the BBC Proms (circa 2006) was an act of cultural influence so powerful that it led Oxford musicologist Geoff Baker, The Guardian in hand, to fly – Hemingway-like – to Caracas for over a year to search for the pot of gold at the end of this utopian rainbow. What he found, of course, defeated his hopeful expectations, and resulted in his now-famous critique – “El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth.”
Finally, with increasing public visibility comes increasing power. Gustavo Dudamel claims not to want to use that power – to separate music from politics with generic, non-committal pronouncements – and yet he engaged for some 15 years in the overt exercise of political and cultural influence. He just chose to do it for the Venezuelan regime, under both Chavez and his anointed successor, Maduro. And he did it because he is very much a product of that regime, forged in its image. He counts its key officials among his close friends, as is widely known. Many of his close friends now outside of Venezuela are still committed to the ideology of Chavismo. And yes, that is their right, and his right. As much as it is the right of Gergiev to commit to Putinism. But, given the abject failure and barbarism of the regime, its continued brutality against its own people and it refusal to accept the will of the majority, those Venezuelans who do choose to fight for the freedom of their entire country – not just their personal interests – ought to be granted the right to present fierce resistance to Dudamel’s equivocal position.
And this is where we find ourselves – in an unequivocal position of unwanted, but necessary resistance. It was not a state-funded Norwegian youth orchestra playing at Carnegie Hall five days after Maduro stole the most recent election, but a state-owned Venezuelan youth orchestra heavily engaged – on the collective, not individual level – in cultural influence. This was a moment in which Dudamel could have simply put down his baton and walked off stage. Imagine the message that would have sent at such a pivotal moment in Venezuela’s journey. Braver men have risked far more. “Ladies and gentlemen, given that the orchestra before you is owned by a ministry of a regime that is, as I speak, imprisoning my countrymen for demanding that this week’s election results be published and respected, I can not, in good conscience, make music with you here tonight. I will return with my fellow Venezuelan musicians once music itself has been freed from the grip of a regime that has overstayed its welcome and exploited our young musicians for too long . Goodnight.”
Imagine the NYT the next day…
And believe me, this sort of ideological capture is highly effective in cities like New York. I know many well-intentioned, wealthy, midtown New York Democrats who simply refuse to allow their ideological bubble of “Revolution!” to be burst. They want to believe that utopia exists, and that the Castro-Cuban inheritance of the 20th century is, after all, alive and beating in Leftist hearts. And that would be fine too, if the reality of Venezuela’s Castro-Cuban inheritance was not so brutal for those beneficiaries on the ground who are forced to accept it, as opposed to those in cozy American armchairs who fetishise it; if it were not for the 8 million forced to flee it; it it were not for the countless lost lives.
As for Venezuela’s “most famous musical export” (to quote you), I am sure my wife – in moments like last Sunday night, leaving the stage in Munich hand-in-hand with Argerich after weaving musical magic together – is quite happy to yield her place in the league table of fame and celebrity to Mr. Dudamel. Fame is meaningless to her. She would give up every concert and every last dollar to see her country free of the tyranny that Mr. Dudamel has for so long befriended; to return, after 14 years, to her homeland without the threat of arrest. And Venezuelans know it. That’s all that matters to her. She’s not looking for statues or stars on the walk of fame. She just wants her country back. A bit like the Syrians, who – as I write – are booting out Maduro’s close ally Bashir Al-Assad.
Kind regards,
Sam
Thank you for that. Much to ponder.
And I certainly never meant to suggest that your wife was ever anything but committed to her country and her people, nor that she was not an international superstar. She is so popular in Canada and, happily for her many devotees, that it would be impossible to miss. Happily, she is a frequent visitor here.
Nor do I think she seeks the fame that has befallen Mr. Dudamel, whether deservedly or not: celebrity is such a capricious thing, and has nothing, or little, to do with talent or anything else. I think Dudamel is a better conductor than he is sometimes given credit for here, as Lang Lang is a better pianist than a lot of SD contributors allow. But by some quirk of fate, they are among the very few international “household names” of classical music in this benighted age. However good they may or not be, I very much suspect that there are many better, and less heralded, artists in their fields.
But I must accept your distinction between the state-funded and the state-owned. However, I still wonder how committed the artists — and this may include Dudamel — are to the regimes they represent. I spent a great deal of time with artists of the National Ballet of Cuba, including Alicia and Alberto Alonso and many of the dancers, over a period of years. We talked about many things, and Alicia discussed quite openly how Fidel approached her and asked her to come back from the ABT and found a national company for Cuba. But as far as she was concerned, the object was simply to provide the country with a top tier company, and most of our discussions were about how that was achieved, choices in repertoire, training methods, etc. I had similar experience with the Kirov.
And when a Chinese Opera company came to Canada, I met them a few times — lunched with a couple of the managers, and spent hours watching the makeup artists do their magic — and our extensive discussions of the company never even went near politics.
All countries employ their arts in a soft power manner. I know how Canada — which funds the arts rather more generously than the US (though private sponsorship is very much encouraged and is reasonably available) — sends artists abroad, sometimes funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs, to put a face on what we hope is our reputation in the world. The British Council has done this for decades.
I remember many years ago going to a one-man play being presented by the British Council in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and being invited to a reception afterward at the High Commission. In chats with Roy Dotrice, the actor, and with HE and some Council staff, the main topic was Patrick Garland’s wonderful way of making the Aubrey material come gloriously to life. Not about the greatness of British theatre, and therefore of the country.
Perhaps the young Venezuelans apparently being exploited are more political than most of the hundreds, if not thousands, of artists I have met over the years. And less self-absorbed about their art. One never knows quite what goes on in someone’s head, especially in the name of self-preservation.
As always, your comments give me much food for thought and much hard information, and I will think on them. I apologise for the late reply, but for some days my computer would not let me get into this site.
I’ll leave you with one memory. I was once in a position to bring a Canadian-Venezuelan expat who had gone to school with, and claimed friendship with, Dudamel, together with the then very young conductor. The man was an engineer, just an ordinary, not particularly well-off, new Canadian. I was a little wary lest he had exaggerated the friendship and wanted in some way to gain something from the meeting. I went into Dudamel’s room after a concert, introduced myself and said I had a surprise for him. The supplicant came in at my signal, and the two fell into one another’s arms. Looking over his friend’s shoulder at me, Dudamel signed a thank you with a huge smile and tears in his eyes. He was already celebrated, but just on the cusp of the great fame he would soon achieve. But his delight in meeting an old friend, who had left his country so was probably no Chavist, was genuine and sincere. People are complex.
Couldn’t have written it better myself if I too used ChatGPT.
So original, so insightful, so beautiful, brought me to AI tears.
Just for the record, whenever pro-dictator individuals start getting “big thoughts about society”, it’s time to flee the country.
I also had big thoughts about society once, but it interfered with my typing skills so I had to stop.
Sally
I’m more worried about the contraction of live classical music in general in America. The one time huge support and audiences are receding back to European shores.
And this is coming from an artist who did a lot to support and promote Chavez’s regime in Venezuela and abroad 🙁 Sadly, there are quite a few dark pages in the “music & politics” book. And Dudamel’s name is at least on one of them.
A great deal has been said about art and politics going back centuries. Leonard Bernstein’s comment, from an interview in the L.A. Times in 1972, remains insightful:
“Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed. Because people are changed by art—enriched, ennobled, encouraged—they can act in a way that may affect the course of events by the way they vote, the way they behave, the way they think.”
I think that is true, only the dynamics happen over long periods.
can we just be really brutally honest and ask the real question – why is that man even a conductor? is he even good? answer: meh… not really.
The assumption that this is ghostwritten is not called for; these are thoughts that many of us are having at the moment. A bit of assistance with copyediting, perhaps, but this is quite believably Dudamel’s own.
Careful, big head…..the winds are blowing hard! With this amount of puffery you are going to blow away!!
the clue is in BIG…… it does not augur well for Matias……
Dudamel is a phony. HE is Debra Borda’s creation. He never studied with any musician of consequence, he is an amateur that was young and cute at once. He is doing NO favor to classical music. He is a self-serving, PC, pretender that people created to be something, Like the Banana with the duck tape that sold for 6.2 million! Very sad. This enfant terrible opened the floodgates for so many young, know nothing about music conductors to get hired and have numerous orchestras, while I am sure many seasoned conductors have NO orchestra! Very sad.
Dudamel trained with Dutoit and worked under Rattle.
That’s not true. I saw his 2007 SBYOV proms program (the Shostakovich 10 and West Side Story one) in the US when I was in high school and it changed my life. He’s not a god, but he’s one of the greats easily.
A load of hogwash..words, words signifying nothing. ‘Thinking about the relationship between the individual and society’? Perhaps he should get Maduro to engage in the same thinking.
My first only only impression: Any word from any conductor outside the concert hall is already one word too many.