Amid the hoopla and hullabaloo of Gustavo Dudamel’s arrival in Los Angeles, few seem to have noticed that he has quietly renewed as music director in Gothenburg, Swden, for the next three years.

The Swedes can never be faulted for discretion. Over the last four years they have enabled the Venezuelan wonderstick to learn his repertoire out of the world’s limelight, working with a band that expects a conductor to push out the envelope every time he steps on the rostrum.

Gothenburg, I have written elsewhere, is top dog among Scandinavian orchestras, a league apart from the Stockholm Phil, where Alan Gilbert toiled for eight dull years. It was led for quarter of a century by Neeme Jarvi and the Dude took over after a nervous interregnum with the Swiss conductor, Mario Venzago.

If Dudamel has hit top spot on i-Tunes with Mahler One this month, that triumph is founded on the grey winter hours he put in among the impassive Swedes. ‘I love the musicians of this orchestra and the work we do together,’ said Dudamel, on signing the contract, ‘you cannot imagine my enthusiasm for continuing to build on what we have achieved.’

Credit for his Gothenburg grounding belongs to Ed Smith, Simon Rattle’s former sidekick in Birmingham. Smith is leaving Gothenburg in the New Year but he will continue to advise the orchestra and its whizz-man in his ever-immaculate way.

 

Hot on the South Bank’s announcement of a London residency by Gustavo Dudamel and his Venezuelan ensemble, the Barbican is introducing annual residencies by no fewer than four major-leaguers: the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and the philharmonic orchestras of New York and Los Angeles.

 

This is a bold diversification for a multi-disciplinary arts centre that depends heavily on the London Symphony Orchestra for its music. The visiting orchestras will spend a week there each year, giving three concerts and some chamber music recitals and doing a good deal of outreach and community work in needy districts to the east of London. The scheme is being engineered with no extra sources of funding and is the first big feather in the cap of Barbican boss, Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

 

It looks so good on paper that I hate to raise a quizzical eyebrow about the necessity of having Dudamel, MD of the LA Phil, at both London venues. 

 

And I guess some folks back home might wonder why the New York Phil is doing social work in Bermondsey, Barking and Bow when they are not seen much in the Bronx.

 

It could be interesting to see how players who don’t get out of bed for less than $120,000 a year interact with Somali immigrant kids who are lucky to get a full bowl of rice at night for supper. If the scheme is more than mere window-dressing, stand by for spiritual awakenings in the band.

Hot on the South Bank’s announcement of a London residency by Gustavo Dudamel and his Venezuelan ensemble, the Barbican is introducing annual residencies by no fewer than four major-leaguers: the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus of Leipzig and the philharmonic orchestras of New York and Los Angeles.

 

This is a bold diversification for a multi-disciplinary arts centre that depends heavily on the London Symphony Orchestra for its music. The visiting orchestras will spend a week there each year, giving three concerts and some chamber music recitals and doing a good deal of outreach and community work in needy districts to the east of London. The scheme is being engineered with no extra sources of funding and is the first big feather in the cap of Barbican boss, Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

 

It looks so good on paper that I hate to raise a quizzical eyebrow about the necessity of having Dudamel, MD of the LA Phil, at both London venues. 

 

And I guess some folks back home might wonder why the New York Phil is doing social work in Bermondsey, Barking and Bow when they are not seen much in the Bronx.

 

It could be interesting to see how players who don’t get out of bed for less than $120,000 a year interact with Somali immigrant kids who are lucky to get a full bowl of rice at night for supper. If the scheme is more than mere window-dressing, stand by for spiritual awakenings in the band.