Gustavo Dudamel

Speaker 40:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:04

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:51

My castaway this week is the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. He's a music superstar whose popularity transcends traditional genre expectations. As musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the past 17 years, nobody has done more to bring classical music to new audiences or to inspire young musicians. He was born in Venezuela in 1981 and at the age of five joined El Sistema, the country's youth music programme. He first picked up the baton at 12 and became director of the LA Philharmonic just 14 years later. Under his leadership, the orchestra has, as well as exploring the classical canon, embraced collaborations with the pop world, playing the Super Bowl halftime show and Coachella Festival, as well as introducing a US version of the programme he grew up in. Youth Orchestra Los Angeles reaches almost 2,000 young musicians in LA and many more nationwide. His accolades include Seven Grammys, the America Society Cultural Achievement Award, the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award, the Gish Prize, the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from Spain, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At 44, he's about to begin a new chapter at the New York Philharmonic, stepping up to the podium where Toscanini, Mahler, and Leonard Bernstein stood before him. He says, I've made it my personal mission not to rest until music is truly a fundamental human right for everyone. Gustavo Dudamel, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Gustavo Dudamel2:17

Thank you very much. It's a huge honor.

Presenter2:18

You're laughing at your own introduction. It's dizzy. I'm embarrassed. It's a lot.

Speaker 12:20

Thing at your own introduction.

Speaker 12:21

It's embarrassed completely.

Presenter2:25

So, Gustavo, you've performed all over the world. Do audiences differ much in their appreciation of classical music? Do you kind of think, oh, we're in London tonight? Great, they're going to love us.

Gustavo Dudamel2:34

I think every place have, I don't know how to say in English, the idiosyncracia, their own culture, their own way to appreciate culture. And I think you feel, of course, that there is a difference, but at the end, it's not a difference because also the connection is always the same. And people, I think, love music. You know, I think it's something natural.

Presenter2:57

And you can feel that connection.

Gustavo Dudamel2:58

To

Presenter2:58

Yeah.

Gustavo Dudamel2:58

Uh

Presenter2:58

The note

Gustavo Dudamel2:59

It's in the room. Completely. I think it's the most important thing. If you don't connect, then it's... nothing happens, you know?

Presenter3:06

And of course, you are the kind of crucible for that connection, the conductor, the one that holds everything together. And it's a tremendous responsibility that. So when you walk out on stage at the beginning of a performance, what's going through your mind?

Gustavo Dudamel3:13

So

Gustavo Dudamel3:19

What is always there is the excitement. And I think it's always in my mind that very young Gustavo that was seduced by the power of music. I think it's always that. And I'm always... I feel this is a gift. I'm grateful to life to give me the opportunity to do this and to do with these wonderful musicians that I have the opportunity to work with. So it's pure emotion, is adrenaline, is... is excitement. The real power of music is the mystery of how that touch us and how from that from where that is coming, you know, it's very special.

Presenter3:57

Now choosing anyone's discs for Desert Island discs is always difficult, but I'm imagining for you much more difficult than most. How did you narrow down your list to just eight today? It must have been agony.

Gustavo Dudamel4:04

Oldman Mo

Gustavo Dudamel4:09

I consider myself not a classical musician. I consider myself a a lover of music, you know, and a music lover. It's always that music that is really connect with something there that it makes you feel, I don't know, the magic of life, I think.

Presenter4:28

Well, we're going to spread a little bit of that magic today. So let's get started with your first choice. What have you gone for? Disc number one.

Gustavo Dudamel4:35

Well, the first one is this music that is coming from my home, from Barquisimeto, from La Sucre, which is my the neighborhood where I grew up, is called Catalina Lao by Peter Conde Rodriguez, an amazing salsa singer from Puerto Rico. And I grew up listening to salsa because my father plays salsa. And I think I learned

Speaker 14:52

Panam

Gustavo Dudamel5:02

First to dance, then to listen to music, because this is a music that in the Caribbean area is part of our identity.

Speaker 15:22

Family Mano!

Speaker 15:26

And I mean that

Speaker 15:29

My legs got in blood

Speaker 15:33

Boya like a door

Speaker 15:39

Peppo Jum Dung Po

Presenter5:42

Catalina Lao, Pete L. Conde Rodriguez. So, Gustavo Dudemel, you were born in nineteen eighty one in Bacisimeto, Venezuela. Your parents, Oscar and Solan Hel, were both musical. So your dad was a a player, as you said. What what did your mum do?

Gustavo Dudamel5:56

Father is a trombone player. They married when they were really young. I was born when they were like teenagers. They met in a gaita group. So gaita is a typical folk music in Venezuela from El Sulia, from Maracaibo. And my mother was singing. My father was playing, I think, the drums and all of that. And they met.

Speaker 16:11

Yeah.

Presenter6:11

Okay.

Presenter6:19

That's the magic, isn't it? That's the chemistry.

Gustavo Dudamel6:20

When they were like fourteen, fifteen years old. So it was like uh they got in love and and of course my mother was always singing, you know, and

Presenter6:24

Yeah.

Presenter6:30

So would she sing with you? Do you remember that around the house when you were a kid?

Gustavo Dudamel6:30

She said

Gustavo Dudamel6:33

Yes, always she teached me a lot of music, a lot of songs, you know. It was always music around.

Presenter6:39

And Boquisimeto, it was known as it is known as the music capital of Venezuela, so music huge there. I mean, how did it earn that title?

Gustavo Dudamel6:46

They did a census and they were counting the people and what they found is that in every house in Burquisimeto was a musical instrument.

Gustavo Dudamel6:55

Also, the music is such an important thing in the city. Still, you know, you see people playing serenades, you know, for people, which we don't see often. Literally singing up to windows in the streets. Literally, I did that. I did that as a teenager and you see all of these heritage of wonderful cultural deep music in the town. I had an uncle, he was a doctor, and he passed during the COVID, but he was playing a typical instrument. The cuatro is the most typical instrument in Venezuela. And he told me, look, Gustavito, he said, if you go out and you play Brahms, you play Mahar, you play Vivaldi, all of this music, you have to play the music from your town. So he teached me all of these balses, all of these merengues, all of these typical music. And so I got into also the folk Venezuelan music so deeply because that. So I have been...

Presenter7:06

Like literally singing up to windows in the street.

Presenter7:09

Do you know how to

Gustavo Dudamel7:56

Swimming in all of these music styles.

Presenter7:58

From the beginning

Gustavo Dudamel7:59

From the very beginning.

Presenter8:00

From a young age. And you mentioned that your parents were really young when they had you. So what are your memories of them back then? Life must have family life must have been kind of energetic and fun with young parents.

Gustavo Dudamel8:00

Aging.

Gustavo Dudamel8:10

I have to say, very energetic, love.

Gustavo Dudamel8:14

Loud because my father loved to listen to music and my family loved to listen to music.

Presenter8:18

So it did hear off like a stereo at home and all of that, the sound system.

Gustavo Dudamel8:20

Amazing huge speaker stereos in the 80s. I remember, you know, huge like

Gustavo Dudamel8:28

Yeah. And it was a very small apartment. It was like 51 square meters, something like that. And we were all living there. My grandparents, my uncles, my parents. It was amazing. And it was always music there.

Presenter8:44

And did you and so did he let you touch the sound system? Because some dads are quite like, you're not allowed. Oh no, I can tell by the look on your face. It was forbidden.

Gustavo Dudamel8:50

It was forbidden. It was forbidden, but I did.

Presenter8:54

Forbidden fruits, you couldn't resist.

Gustavo Dudamel8:56

I did because I had to do it when I started to conduct the recordings.

Presenter9:02

Ah, so this is when you would conduct with your toys?

Gustavo Dudamel9:04

Exactly.

Presenter9:05

As a little boy.

Gustavo Dudamel9:05

So and I had to touch that because I had to balance, to play less loud, louder. And I stopped it, I I destroyed the LPs that I have at that time because I was stopping, going back, stopping, going back. So I doing I was doing proper rehearsals.

Presenter9:21

Oh man. So, yeah, you were going over every phrase and in charge of the dynamics.

Gustavo Dudamel9:22

Answer yeah.

Gustavo Dudamel9:24

And in charge.

Gustavo Dudamel9:26

And not together, it was perfect, you know. Imagine all of these great orchestras, but.

Presenter9:28

You know,

Presenter9:32

I think it was your grandmother who took you to your first classical concert, though, when you were really little. How old were you?

Gustavo Dudamel9:37

I was, I think, six years old. I went first to a salsa. I went a lot to salsa concerts of my father first. Yeah. You know, and I wanted to be a salsa player.

Gustavo Dudamel9:50

I still have that dream, but I wanted to be in that stage playing and dancing with these people like Vita Conde Rodriguez, Fanny, all star, and my father was doing amazing. But then my grandmother took me to a concert where my father was playing, because he was also playing in the youth orchestra of my town, the Lara Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Speaker 110:02

And and my father

Speaker 110:12

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel10:15

And they were playing I Remember Shehere Sad by Rimsky Korsakov.

Gustavo Dudamel10:20

And I was amazed about the amount of people on the stage.

Gustavo Dudamel10:28

making beauty together, making a sound that I was so like touched by. And I saw, of course, that amount of instruments. I wanted to play the trombone like my father, but then I saw the violins, the cellos, all of this. And I saw this man moving in front of all of them, which was, I think, I thought he was the instrument. You know, he was the instrument. You know, it was the coming, the sound was coming from him, and it was not. I discovered later that. But I was amazed. And that was that first concert that my grandmother took me. So it was beautiful.

Presenter11:06

Gustavo Dudamal, it's time to make some room for your second choice today, your second disc. What have you got for us and why?

Gustavo Dudamel11:12

Well, we are in Barquisimeto. This is a beautiful song by Adelis Freites, which was a very good friend of mine, him and his family. And he is one of the most important folk musicians of Venezuela. And he wrote all of this wonderful music, very engaged with the social movements and all of that. And he wrote this beautiful song about love with his very simple is a merengue, Venezuelan merengue, in the most tender way, which is called asidit.

Presenter11:41

Minnesota

Presenter11:46

What are the lyrics saying here? What will we hear?

Gustavo Dudamel11:48

It sounds like the love

Gustavo Dudamel11:51

It's like a lemon and it's dropping in your heart and it's very acid. It's a little acid, but it's the flavor, you know, that the love is not only sweet, it can be also it have all of these kind of you know, flavors. Exactly.

Presenter12:08

Flavor.

Presenter12:09

I love that.

Gustavo Dudamel12:12

A noche ser reflect, sobre lespejo de la laguna, me sua corvar de una ilución que jeguen el corazó.

Gustavo Dudamel12:24

Anoche ser reflec, sobre lespejo de la laguna, bi su cordar de una ilución que vuengel toras unfalninfo.

Speaker 112:38

Pol la tuna del limon c'est la puedo.

Presenter12:41

Gustavo Dudamel, you talked about when you were a very little boy arranging your toys in the shape of an orchestra. So you would put music on the record player, classical music, and then you would conduct what was happening. So what did your family make of you doing that?

Gustavo Dudamel12:58

Nothing, it was very serious. And I have to say I had an amazing free childhood. So I was never pushed to do anything. Although I was doing thousands of things, I was doing music, I remember I was in karate, I remember I was in my swimming class, I was doing baseball, soccer, so many things. But when I had my time of playing with my toys, it was a ritual. And I have these little toys that I put exactly like an orchestra. And I seated them, I made a stage, I put lights, even, but I did rehearsals, which was incredible. And then I was playing that for my family.

Gustavo Dudamel13:45

It was beautiful. It was like a very genuine, innocent ritual.

Presenter13:51

Did you have a baton and everything, or did you use

Gustavo Dudamel13:53

At that time, no. But then my grandmother saw that I was loving and loving that and then she bought me a baton.

Presenter14:01

So soon you enrolled in another class on top of the karate and the swimming, El Sistema, the music programme. You were five years old. So this was a state sponsored music teaching programme aimed at teaching young people from all backgrounds an instrument, and yours was the violin. Yes. How did you take to it?

Gustavo Dudamel14:18

And I want to eat drum on player like my father?

Gustavo Dudamel14:21

But at home, that was my father's instrument, which was a huge trombone. I I couldn't play that instrument, you know. Somebody blow and I move here and there. It was it was kind of very funny. It was impossible. But even I was trying, I was like

Speaker 114:28

Uh

Presenter14:28

The arms are not.

Speaker 114:29

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel14:36

I mean running to the other acts. Exactly.

Presenter14:37

At the moment running to the other end.

Gustavo Dudamel14:40

But it was exactly like that. So most of my friends, they play violin. I tried a little bit with the trumpet for a very little time, but it didn't work. And I took violin. My dream as a musician was not to be conducting the top orchestras and working with the best musicians. It was to be with my friends.

Gustavo Dudamel15:01

And it was every weekend, you know, doing our rehearsal with the chamber orchestra. We were playing our chamber music and composing and it was the most delicious thing. I remember that with all my love and it it all it's always here, you know, when I'm working with the privilege that I have to work with these best orchestras, best musicians, I put that feeling that...

Gustavo Dudamel15:27

It was pure love, not expecting anything.

Presenter15:30

Well, we'll find out what happened next in a moment, but we've got to make some room for the music. This is your third choice. What are we going to hear next and why?

Gustavo Dudamel15:31

Thank you.

Gustavo Dudamel15:36

Here.

Gustavo Dudamel15:37

Well, we stay in South America, and this is one of the most emblematic songs of Latin American culture.

Gustavo Dudamel15:48

By this wonderful woman, Chabuca Granda. She wrote so many songs, and this is.

Gustavo Dudamel15:54

Her most famous one called La Flor de la Canela, which I had the chance to listen a lot when I was a little boy at home because my grandmother listening to this and I had the chance, well, even to conduct this music with Juan Diego Flores in some concerts that I have done with him, which is a wonderful friend and a brother. This is one of the most symbolic songs of the Latin culture.

Speaker 116:31

De came que teente live.

Speaker 116:36

They have the gloria.

Speaker 116:39

Tellensue yo que vocar, la memoria.

Gustavo Dudamel16:43

Uh

Speaker 116:43

Uh

Speaker 116:44

Del Viejo Puente del Rú.

Gustavo Dudamel16:45

P Uh

Gustavo Dudamel16:47

Yeah.

Speaker 116:47

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter16:50

Uh

Speaker 116:50

The chameleon.

Presenter16:54

La Flo della Canela, Chabuca Granda. So, Gustavo, you first picked up a baton when you were twelve in the concert hall rather than uh in your apartment at home.

Gustavo Dudamel17:03

Yeah.

Presenter17:04

How did it happen?

Gustavo Dudamel17:05

I was playing in a chamber orchestra in my maestro, Luisimenes.

Gustavo Dudamel17:10

He was late for the rehearsal. I went to the podium and I started to imitate all the different conductors that

Gustavo Dudamel17:18

When you and

Gustavo Dudamel17:20

And in a moment I was conducting with my eyes, like Carrigan.

Gustavo Dudamel17:25

with my eyes closed and conducting like this and the moment they stopped it and they started to laugh and I was like, okay and I opened my eyes and in my left was a Maestro Luis Jimenez.

Presenter17:38

So he'd seen you.

Gustavo Dudamel17:39

And I said like this is the end. And then he said like keep doing the rehearsal. And he was guiding me, but he let me do the rehearsal and then we finished and I was like, Okay, here is coming the moment. And he says like look

Gustavo Dudamel17:54

Something in you

Gustavo Dudamel17:56

I want for you to be my assistant, and I became assistant conductor of the orchestra.

Presenter18:01

And how long was it before you got your hands on the full conducting score, the the partitrue?

Gustavo Dudamel18:06

Immediately because I was conducting there, I was conducting Mozart, I was conducting Vivaldi, I was conducting all of this chamber music. Even I was conducting my music, I was composing music at that time. I was also playing at the youth orchestra, which I got the chance also to conduct, you know, the symphonic music. And then I discovered this Maler scores, which I said like, oh my god, what is this? How to do this, you know, because I knew these small scores and then it became this huge orchestration and all of that. But it was very natural. It was when I was called by Maestro Abreo, the creator of El Sistema.

Gustavo Dudamel18:47

And he said, Look, Gustavo, I was playing in the National Children's Orchestra, and he said, like,

Gustavo Dudamel18:52

Now you are the new music director of the National Children's Orchestra. I was 15, 16 years old.

Gustavo Dudamel18:59

That was the moment where I started to learn all of these scores, you know?

Presenter19:04

And now when you work with a a a partitio, I think you you start quite l a long time in advance of a big concert, can be a year and a half before you know you start kind of spending time with it. When you are reading a huge document like that, are you hearing the music?

Speaker 419:12

Yeah.

Gustavo Dudamel19:20

Yes. It's a very special process because of course you can you go to the piano, you analyze harmony and all of that, but mostly you are reading. That is why reading for me is so important. You know, literature, philosophy, it's something that

Speaker 119:32

Right.

Gustavo Dudamel19:36

I love to do since I was a young boy. And I relate that to what I do with the score, with a particular of a symphony. I'm reading and imagining, but never, I have to be honest, I'm never studying and like moving my hand in front of the score. I don't do that. I read the score.

Speaker 120:00

Wait.

Gustavo Dudamel20:00

And when it's the moment to arrive to work with the orchestra, everything comes out reading.

Speaker 120:00

Yeah.

Presenter20:00

Uh

Presenter20:06

And it's interesting that because you've said that when you're on the podium you feel completely free.

Gustavo Dudamel20:11

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:11

So that sounds like you've done all that preparation, it's all kind of in there, and then.

Presenter20:16

Bang, it comes out on the night.

Gustavo Dudamel20:18

Completely. It's not a day that I don't study a score. And of course you are in a process that you are digesting the music, but really digesting.

Gustavo Dudamel20:28

I think you're soul?

Gustavo Dudamel20:30

is kind of eating.

Gustavo Dudamel20:33

You know, your intellect is eating, and then you are digesting what you are having, all of these details, all of this genius that we had the chance to touch through Mahler, through Stravinsky, to John Adams, through Mozart, to all of these great genius that write this amazing music. And then you are in front of the orchestra, and then you have their music, and you connect with all of that kind of ideas, all of that kind of realities that we put in the music.

Gustavo Dudamel21:05

And then we create something, you know? We recreate, but we are creating in that moment that the sound.

Presenter21:06

Mm-hmm.

Gustavo Dudamel21:13

Uh

Presenter21:13

Gustavo, it's time for your fourth disc today. What are we going to hear next?

Gustavo Dudamel21:17

Well, look, it took us Mahler, you know, that first score. This music, as I told you, playing the trombone of my father, learning three notes, it was one of the most amazing things when I was a little boy.

Gustavo Dudamel21:34

Playing in the orchestra and then being named music director of the most important orchestra, Inner Systema, it is a symbol, and this the Malar first symphony. And I pick the last movement, which is is full of everything.

Presenter21:53

It'll be a whole world on your island.

Gustavo Dudamel21:55

Yeah.

Presenter22:56

Part of the fourth movement of Mahler's Symphony No. One, performed by the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York, conducted by Bruno Valta. Gustavo, do you remember the first time you conducted that piece with a big orchestra?

Gustavo Dudamel23:08

I remember I did with the National Children's Orchestra.

Gustavo Dudamel23:12

It was amazing. I had to learn the score in few days.

Presenter23:17

Your profile outside Venezuela grew when you won the first Gustav Mahler conducting competition in Germany back in 2004. The Los Angeles Philharmonic had their eye on you and appointed you as their musical director in 2008. Now, when you accepted the role, you were keen to set up a music education programme like the one that you grew up in to help less privileged children, so you founded YOLA, the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. How do you measure the success of the project?

Gustavo Dudamel23:45

Well, that is something which I'm very proud of. In Los Angeles, it have taken for us years to really see the needs of the places and how to connect and what can inspire the children and all of that. And right now, having thousands of young people.

Gustavo Dudamel24:06

A lot of them from the first, the second generation of YOLA, they are now in great universities. They have found amazing jobs. It was a transformation, not only for them individually, but for their families. Because that is what happened in their systema, is how what surround the child changed with that person.

Presenter24:31

And how does that work? What does that look like?

Gustavo Dudamel24:32

It's very natural because it's something that you first you have to call the attention.

Gustavo Dudamel24:38

You know, that there is something.

Gustavo Dudamel24:40

That you belong.

Gustavo Dudamel24:42

Like is music, is your culture, because culture is identity. My Slabre always said that.

Speaker 124:46

Bye.

Gustavo Dudamel24:49

The worst thing to be poor is to be nobody, is to be no one. When you give an instrument to a child, you are giving identity because you are giving culture to that person. You are giving a space of creativity, a space where they can create beauty through a discipline of working together. So it happened with that child that is playing in the orchestra. And then what happened when he goes to his neighborhood and

Gustavo Dudamel25:19

what the family feels, how proud they feel, how connected they feel. Not only the families, you know, the neighbors and all of this. And it changed completely the concept of art to the people. Because people feel that art is something elitist, something that they don't belong.

Presenter25:40

And you've done a lot of work on that to try and take, you know, the music in into the communities and also to reflect their experience and their culture in in your programme.

Gustavo Dudamel25:47

In your programming. Completely. And if we use in the right way, creating that beautiful, strong, balanced space for young people.

Gustavo Dudamel25:58

You change their life immediately.

Presenter26:00

On that note, I think we better hear some more music. Gustavo, your fifth choice today. What is it?

Gustavo Dudamel26:02

Yes

Gustavo Dudamel26:05

Now we go to the great great great Nina Simone.

Gustavo Dudamel26:09

There are many songs that I love by Nina Simone, but I don't know this song.

Gustavo Dudamel26:15

It's about struggling.

Gustavo Dudamel26:18

And it's about faith.

Gustavo Dudamel26:20

And it's something that we are missing a lot in our times.

Gustavo Dudamel26:25

And we have to see that

Gustavo Dudamel26:28

Although we made mistakes,

Gustavo Dudamel26:31

We always and we struggle with things, we always will find a way in our faith, whatever is, in whatever God that you believe, whatever religious, is there, especially in the one that, the faith that you have in yourself. So this is called Sinnerman.

Gustavo Dudamel26:52

Man, where you gonna run to?

Gustavo Dudamel26:55

Cinnamon, where you gonna run to?

Gustavo Dudamel27:00

We're gonna run to

Gustavo Dudamel27:02

Hold on and take

Gustavo Dudamel27:04

Will I run to the rock?

Gustavo Dudamel27:07

Please hack me and run to the rock

Gustavo Dudamel27:10

Please hat me and run the rock

Gustavo Dudamel27:14

Please hat me on.

Gustavo Dudamel27:16

All on Memphis.

Gustavo Dudamel27:18

But the rock cried out.

Presenter27:21

Nina Simone and Cinnamon.

Presenter27:26

Gustavo Dudamel, one of your passions is crossing genres. You've performed at the Super Bowl half-time show and in April this year you took the LA Phil to perform at Coachella. How did that go? How was it for you? Wonderful.

Gustavo Dudamel27:39

First, you know, the Super Bowl. It was a beautiful experience because the generosity of Chris Martin, which is a brother of life, a good friend from Cold Play, an amazing musician. And he was connected with El Sistema. And then he wanted to bring some young musicians from Sistema program. So we brought the young people from YOLA and it was an iconic moment. I think for the program, but for each one of them, you know, to be present on that stage, you know, together with ColdPlay, with Viancé, with Bruno Marcel.

Gustavo Dudamel28:16

It was kind of very special. As I grew up listening to music, you know, m as my grandfather was giving me one style of music, my father, my mother, my grandmother, my friends. So I was listening. I I I don't feel

Gustavo Dudamel28:32

borders in music. You know, I enjoy music because it's music. And I try to do that. You know, that is why in Los Angeles I

Speaker 128:34

You know.

Gustavo Dudamel28:43

We have an amazing place which is the Hollywood Bowl, where we have the chance, you know, to play during summer for the complete summer season with many music, many classical music, but also I try to really

Gustavo Dudamel28:57

do a lot of music with different kind of artists.

Presenter29:01

Because the bowl is kind of it's more of an accessible, you know, atmosphere. People can kind of come in there, they can eat snacks, they can you know, it's not it's not quite as kind of strict as a concert hall.

Gustavo Dudamel29:08

You know, it's not.

Gustavo Dudamel29:12

18,000 people. The atmosphere is very beautiful. And and I thought, look.

Presenter29:15

Uh

Presenter29:16

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel29:17

Let's try to do this, let's try to really mix, you know, this classical music together with a pop folk artist. Many of the audience that came from for the pop artist, they discover things. And the people that came from the Philharmonic symphonic music, they also discover an artist that... So it was a beautiful interaction which created a natural...

Gustavo Dudamel29:44

Path for us, which arrived to Coachella. Coachella is a symbol of generation. You know, what you see there is people.

Gustavo Dudamel29:53

Hungry of

Gustavo Dudamel29:55

experience. The experience of having different music, you know, and you walk from one stage to the other and you listen and you are surrounded by the beauty of music and all of these styles. So

Gustavo Dudamel30:10

I I had that dream.

Gustavo Dudamel30:12

from the very beginning and I said like look let's do it and of course we were working hard to make that happen and we were in Coachella now in in April and it was incredible and I remember talking to some of musicians one of the musicians that have been almost 40 years in the orchestra that was playing there says this has been the most amazing experience in my life

Presenter30:37

And the crowd were were chanting. They were chanting L A Phil.

Gustavo Dudamel30:40

Hell I feel and it was funny because I remember we did like the top and fifth for example and we said pump pump pump and they were like yeah screaming pa pa and then they went quiet.

Gustavo Dudamel30:51

And listening to the music. I saw the musicians that sometimes they were very like really like smiling, like, what the hell is happening here? You know, I'm loving this, you know.

Speaker 131:01

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel31:03

So

Presenter31:03

Uh

Presenter31:04

And when you've played live, when you've done an incredible concert, incredible gig, how do you kind of wind down? I mean, you mustn't kind of go home and go straight to bed. What does the the night look like for you after that?

Gustavo Dudamel31:15

One of the things that I love to do is cooking.

Gustavo Dudamel31:19

After concert.

Gustavo Dudamel31:21

When I was in Paris at the opera, I was doing Tristan Uni Solde.

Gustavo Dudamel31:25

So we started at six o'clock, it ended at ten. Thirty in the evening, so it was a long journey and I remember I was dreaming, conducting to prepare for myself an omelette with a tomato salad and having a beer.

Gustavo Dudamel31:41

For myself, it was sometimes I love to cook for my friends, to talk.

Presenter31:46

Well, those culinary skills are going to come in handy on the island, Gustavo.

Gustavo Dudamel31:49

But

Presenter31:50

Let's have some more music, your sixth choice today. What's next?

Gustavo Dudamel31:54

Oh, Gujenech, empiat sola

Gustavo Dudamel31:58

This is a tango that I love which is about

Gustavo Dudamel32:02

Love

Gustavo Dudamel32:04

and being crazy.

Gustavo Dudamel32:06

because you are in love. It says a phrase that we are the

Gustavo Dudamel32:10

Crazy people that invented love.

Gustavo Dudamel32:14

I listen to this a lot and it connects with me, with Maria, with my wife. It connects deeply because we call us that we are locos, we are crazy, because we are together.

Gustavo Dudamel32:29

But it's the most beautiful thing because you have to be really crazy to really open your heart and get inside of love in all the dimensions. So this is

Speaker 132:31

Really?

Gustavo Dudamel32:41

Valada parun lo.

Gustavo Dudamel32:43

José Stoybien Tau.

Gustavo Dudamel32:47

Pian Tao, Pian Tao.

Speaker 132:51

No vegetable por casia.

Speaker 133:02

Mebaidar Redur, Ebaida, Vedi, Bola.

Speaker 133:09

Sha se topietopien top.

Presenter33:14

Palada para un loco. So he's talking about all the traffic lights being green.

Gustavo Dudamel33:17

green and fly and you know everything is possible when you are in love.

Gustavo Dudamel33:25

Even the mosque

Gustavo Dudamel33:26

Impossible things.

Presenter33:29

Ballada para un loco by Astor Piazzola, performed by Roberto Goianecci. Gustavo Dudamel El Sistema has its 50th anniversary this year. Many young people have benefited from the music teaching programme, but there have been criticisms too, including recently accusations of corruption and abuse. How did you find out about the allegations?

Gustavo Dudamel33:51

The thing is, when something is successful, it gets attacked. Sometimes things that are positive, we try to see the bad things.

Gustavo Dudamel34:01

There are circumstances and all of that, but the reality of what is happening is that it's giving the results

Gustavo Dudamel34:11

as much as my estra bregu thought in 1975. I believe that because this is not coming from now, all of these attacks systema have been attacked. Imagine, at the beginning it was because how young people from Venezuela can play classical music.

Gustavo Dudamel34:28

It was an argument at the beginning. I saw the papers of critics criticizing El Sistema. But El Sistema is something very powerful that brings the most beautiful values to the young people and a result of the program.

Gustavo Dudamel34:45

I know the reality because I have been inside and

Gustavo Dudamel34:49

For me, as we have been talking, the best memories in my life are coming from a systema. And this is the thing.

Presenter34:57

But the difficult thing about it is that many of these allegations are coming from musicians who've been through the programme too.

Gustavo Dudamel35:02

But of course you can have your own reality. You are playing in an orchestra and maybe you don't have the best experience there, but others have a good experience. But you cannot value one thing from one opinion only. You have to really go deeply to the reality of the program, to go to the different communities and see what is happening there. Because of course nothing is perfect. and things can happen, you know, in a universe as big as ISL Systema, with more than one million young people existing, you know, there are like, I don't know, remember, but around 13,000 teachers. So we are talking about a country in a country. So I respect the opinions of others, but I know my reality.

Gustavo Dudamel35:49

And I know what I know from my experience and what I have seen and what I see in the program.

Presenter35:56

Some students were talking about a culture of overwork, a culture of being pushed too hard. That's not something that you've seen?

Gustavo Dudamel36:02

This is depends of from where you put that, you know, because I was telling you at the beginning that I was all the week.

Gustavo Dudamel36:12

in El Sistema. You say like, wow, what how that can work is too much. You know, I go to the school, I do karate. But it was for me was not overwork. It was the way of

Gustavo Dudamel36:23

making the discipline and working and succeeding in what we wanted to achieve as a group.

Gustavo Dudamel36:30

So, but if you feel that it's overwork, coffee is over things, you know, that is an opinion. The first person that gives the news...

Gustavo Dudamel36:38

Even if it's real or not real, is the one that is people more more listen the most. So these kind of things, you know, I respect that sometimes I say, like, look,

Gustavo Dudamel36:49

We have to go deeper in that and to see all the realities, not only one.

Presenter36:54

It's been such a turbulent time for Venezuela in recent years and for a good while you weren't able to visit the country five years, I think. How difficult was that for you?

Gustavo Dudamel37:03

Very difficult. But I never disconnect to the country. I was always working. I had everyday calls, you know, with the team, with the orchestra, with the Simón Bolivar orchestra, checking how every city was doing and all of that. So I have been always there are many ways to be present. But this is one of the wonderful things of technology that you can be present and to really be connected to.

Presenter37:28

You were able to go back in 2022 after the five years of not doing so. What was that first visit like?

Gustavo Dudamel37:30

If it's

Gustavo Dudamel37:37

He was very emotional.

Gustavo Dudamel37:38

Because I went directly to Barque Cimet.

Gustavo Dudamel37:41

It was to reconnect with my roots immediately. I remember I had a s I put a hat.

Gustavo Dudamel37:47

and I walk on the street.

Gustavo Dudamel37:49

During the night.

Gustavo Dudamel37:51

Was no one.

Gustavo Dudamel37:52

So I was walking around and it was very emotional, especially also

Gustavo Dudamel37:57

connecting with the young people. I went next day

Gustavo Dudamel38:01

to the systema, to the nucleo.

Gustavo Dudamel38:04

M

Gustavo Dudamel38:05

That amount of children, you know.

Gustavo Dudamel38:08

that it was beautiful to see how the motion that they have, how they were playing and what they were doing, although the situation they were giving their best.

Gustavo Dudamel38:20

It was beautiful in that sense.

Presenter38:22

You are so visible as a kind of voice of Venezuela. I mean, you're the only Venezuelan with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Does that role and the pressure to be a spokesperson

Presenter38:35

Does that weigh heavily on you?

Gustavo Dudamel38:37

Look, I have been in this for a very long time.

Gustavo Dudamel38:41

and I have received

Gustavo Dudamel38:43

lot of comments since I was a very young man, because I was next to Maestro Breo. So and I was his direct pupil and all of that. So

Gustavo Dudamel38:54

And since I was very young, so

Gustavo Dudamel38:57

I understood that you have to keep working, believing, and not letting the things that surround you make you have a doubt.

Gustavo Dudamel39:08

This is the thing, never have a doubt that you are doing, you know, and you have to keep doing, working with your group of people or the team or the system or the orchestra or whatever, working in the way that you believe.

Presenter39:21

Gustavo, it's time for some more music. Your seventh choice, please. What have we got?

Gustavo Dudamel39:24

Well, we go to Venezuela.

Gustavo Dudamel39:28

Antonio Esteves is one of our symbolic composers. He wrote this beautiful music about the plains in Venezuela called La Cantata Criolla. And it's this encounter

Gustavo Dudamel39:42

Between this man

Gustavo Dudamel39:44

and the devil. So it's a fight between the good and the bad. So this is what it's about, the piece and and it's called La Cantata Criolla, which symbolize

Gustavo Dudamel39:56

Our country with a poem by Alberto Orbello Torrealba, also a symbol of poetry in Venezuela, and it's what we do all the time.

Presenter41:06

La Cantanta Criollia by Antonio Esteves.

Presenter41:13

Gustav Dudemel, next year you begin your residency with the New York Philharmonic as their music director, following in the footsteps of Gustav Mahler and Leonard Bernstein, so no pressure.

Gustavo Dudamel41:24

No pressure.

Presenter41:26

How are you approaching the task?

Gustavo Dudamel41:28

New York Philharmonic is an institution that is very symbolic in the world of music.

Gustavo Dudamel41:34

As you said, you know.

Gustavo Dudamel41:36

Toscanini, Mahler, Berstein, all of these amazing symbols of the classical music which have created

Speaker 141:42

Take another

Gustavo Dudamel41:45

This amazing level in the music making and which I'm privileged to be named Music and Artistic Director, I think, is a new chapter.

Presenter41:56

Hopefully, it'll be smooth sailing. And if something goes wrong, you did once break Leonard Bernstein's baton and handled that quite well. Uh

Speaker 142:04

Yeah.

Presenter42:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 142:04

Yeah.

Presenter42:04

Talk me through that moment when you're good that you've got your head in your hands. So when you're conducting with Bernstein's baton and it breaks.

Gustavo Dudamel42:12

Well, it was not my fault.

Gustavo Dudamel42:14

To be honest, you know, it's because it's like Gustavo broke the baton on. The baton broke. I remember at that time the head of the archives, they have an amazing archive. We have an amazing archive in New York with all of this music that all of these people have conduct and batons and pencils and everything.

Speaker 142:25

Merit.

Gustavo Dudamel42:36

And her name is Barbara. I went every day to the archive to check scores. I was like, how they call library mouse. You know, I was like ticking ticket tickets and sitting, watching everything. And she was very amazed that I was all the time there. So she came to the concert, to my first concert with the New York Philharmonic. And she said, like, please, can you...

Speaker 142:44

Hurt.

Gustavo Dudamel42:59

Give me the honor to conduct with this baton. And I saw it was Lenny's baton. I was like,

Gustavo Dudamel43:05

And I was very used to a l a light baton. And his was very light too. It was a wood one, was made by the Timpani player from the Metropolitan Opera House, you know, Mr. Horowitz.

Speaker 143:16

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel43:18

And I went and I conducted my four concerts. In the last concert I was conducting without the score, so I didn't have any stand in front.

Gustavo Dudamel43:29

So I was conducting, conducting the last bars of the Prokofia Fifth Symphony.

Gustavo Dudamel43:35

It broke.

Gustavo Dudamel43:36

It broke, it broke, I didn't touch anything, it broke in the last 10 seconds of the symphony, in the last concert. So I remember it went to the audience, you know, I had to talk to the lady that took it, please can you give me back, you know, this is something that is not mine.

Speaker 143:53

Uh

Gustavo Dudamel43:53

And but it was funny because it became an history and it was at the New York Times and in name on the magazines and all of that, the guy that broke the baton. So I don't I don't want to be remembered by the guy that broke the baton of birthday, but this was in two thousand seven and now almost twenty years

Speaker 143:57

Duck.

Speaker 144:01

I don't want

Gustavo Dudamel44:10

Later I'm I'm now the music director, I will be the music director.

Presenter44:14

And the baton's still in the archive in two parts, I think. Gustavo, it's almost time to cast you away to the desert islands. I wonder about the practicalities. You've said you can cook, which is a good start. Will you be able to look after yourself on this desert island? Could you build a shelter? Could you start a fire?

Gustavo Dudamel44:29

I think so. I can do it. I love architecture.

Gustavo Dudamel44:34

But I will do something simple.

Gustavo Dudamel44:37

If not, I call my friend Frank Gary to join us. Frank Gary is a good pal of yours. Yeah, I can do it.

Presenter44:38

Yes, yes.

Presenter44:42

Okay. How are you with solitude? How will you be completely on your own?

Gustavo Dudamel44:47

Something I get to be a lonely person.

Gustavo Dudamel44:51

When I'm in my kokum studying, when I'm reading, when I'm thinking.

Gustavo Dudamel44:57

I get very silent.

Gustavo Dudamel44:59

I have a lot of talks with myself.

Speaker 145:01

Yeah.

Gustavo Dudamel45:02

And I love people.

Gustavo Dudamel45:04

I think you got it's not gonna be easy to be alone.

Presenter45:07

You're really going to need to lean on your desks. You're going to need the music to keep you going.

Gustavo Dudamel45:10

Well this music all all of this music connect me with people. So

Presenter45:16

Alright, well, we'll give you one more disc before we cast you away. Tell me about your final choice. What's it gonna be?

Gustavo Dudamel45:21

Beethoven for me is the greatest of all composers. They are all amazing, but there's something in Beethoven that

Gustavo Dudamel45:29

That it goes beyond everything, time, technicality.

Gustavo Dudamel45:34

something really unique and he wrote in that in the last period of his life when he was completely deaf

Gustavo Dudamel45:42

Maybe the most beautiful and powerful music.

Gustavo Dudamel45:46

which is his chamber music. And this is the late quartets that he wrote, the late group of quartets. And this is quartet number 16, opus 135, which in this case we will listen not in the original version of a quartet, if not conducted by Berstein with the Vienna Philharmonic, a version for complete string orchestras which make the sound more rich and very powerful. Although in quartet is perfection also in this context is and is a very reflective and peaceful music and for me is an anthem.

Gustavo Dudamel46:30

of peace, of faith.

Presenter47:32

Part of the third movement from Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16, Opus 135. Orchestrated by Leonard Bernstein and performed by the Vienna Philharmonic. So, Gustavo Dudamel, the time has come. I'm going to cast you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to take along. You can also have one other book. I know you like reading, so this might be a tough one for you. What would you like?

Gustavo Dudamel47:56

I will take sien años de soledad.

Gustavo Dudamel48:00

By Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Presenter48:02

Okay, 100 years of solidarity.

Gustavo Dudamel48:03

Hundreds of solitude because

Gustavo Dudamel48:06

It brings me to my land, to my magic reality land, which I love. I will imagine having that surrounding me in my in in that island.

Presenter48:19

Beautiful choice. You can also have a luxury item. What have you gone for?

Gustavo Dudamel48:25

Or I'm doubting right now if I will take a good rom.

Presenter48:29

A good rum.

Gustavo Dudamel48:30

you know, a good Venezuelan rum that I can really it will

Presenter48:31

That ain't

Gustavo Dudamel48:34

connect me also.

Presenter48:35

Okay.

Gustavo Dudamel48:35

Okay.

Presenter48:36

Okay, how do you take it?

Gustavo Dudamel48:38

Pure.

Presenter48:38

You don't need ice.

Gustavo Dudamel48:39

Not because if it would be difficult to find ice in the island.

Presenter48:44

I could do you an ice machine as long as it's solar powered.

Gustavo Dudamel48:44

I could do you an ice machine as long as it's solar powered. It's gonna be a tropical island, no? So it will so I think I will take, you know and maybe one ice.

Presenter48:48

Yeah.

Presenter48:52

Okay, okay.

Gustavo Dudamel48:53

Only one rock of us.

Presenter48:54

Yeah, th that can keep you going for as long as it keeps you going.

Presenter48:59

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waves first, if they were washed away?

Gustavo Dudamel49:07

Mid Tobin.

Gustavo Dudamel49:08

I will save it on.

Presenter49:10

Gustavo Dudamel, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Gustavo Dudamel49:14

Thank you very much. Big honor and pleasure.

Presenter49:31

Hello, it was lovely chatting to Gustavo, and I hope that he's very happy on his island drinking rum and watching the sun go down. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive that you can listen to, including the conductors Marinol Sop, Sir Simon Rattle, and Daniel Barrenboy. You can hear all of those if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Disc's website. The studio manager was Phil Lander, the executive production coordinator was Susie Roylance, the assistant producer was Tim Barno, the content editor was Mugabe Turia, and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Join me next time when my guest will be the actor Monica Dolan.

Speaker 450:37

Hi, I'm Mariana Spring and I'm the BBC's social media investigations correspondent. This time on Mariana in Conspiracy Land 2 for BBC Radio 4, I've been investigating the case of Paloma Shemirani, a 23-year-old woman who died of cancer having rejected chemotherapy in favour of alternative methods.

Speaker 450:56

Paloma's brothers say there's more to the story. They say her decision was influenced by the views of their mum, Kate Shimirani, a vocal British conspiracy theorist who shares misinformation about cancer online, a version of events which she disputes. Join me as I try to find out what happened and what Paloma's case tells us about the mainstreaming of anti-medicine ideas. Listen on BBC Sounds.