Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Conductor who, as LA Philharmonic musical director, brought classical music to new audiences and inspired young musicians.
On the island
Eight records
I grew up listening to salsa because my father plays salsa. And I think I learned first to dance, then to listen to music, because this is a music that in the Caribbean area is part of our identity.
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.
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.
Symphony No. 1, fourth movement
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.
It's about struggling. And it's about faith. And it's something that we are missing a lot in our times. And we have to see that although we made mistakes, 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.
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. 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.
It's this encounter between this man 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 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.
String Quartet No. 16, Opus 135, third movement (orchestrated by Leonard Bernstein)Favourite
Beethoven for me is the greatest of all composers. They are all amazing, but there's something in Beethoven that it goes beyond everything, time, technicality. something really unique and he wrote in that in the last period of his life when he was completely deaf Maybe the most beautiful and powerful music. 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 of peace, of faith.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:25Do audiences differ much in their appreciation of classical music?
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.
Presenter asks
3:06When you walk out on stage at the beginning of a performance, what's going through your mind?
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.
Presenter asks
14:01How did you take to the violin in El Sistema?
I want to eat drum on player like my father? 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... I mean running to the other acts. Exactly. 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. 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... It was pure love, not expecting anything.
The keepsakes
The book
Gabriel García Márquez
It brings me to my land, to my magic reality land, which I love. I will imagine having that surrounding me in my in that island.
The luxury
I will take a good rum... a good Venezuelan rum that I can really connect me also.
Presenter asks
23:17How do you measure the success of YOLA?
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. 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.
Presenter asks
33:29How did you find out about the allegations of corruption and abuse in El Sistema?
The thing is, when something is successful, it gets attacked. Sometimes things that are positive, we try to see the bad things. There are circumstances and all of that, but the reality of what is happening is that it's giving the results 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. 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. I know the reality because I have been inside and For me, as we have been talking, the best memories in my life are coming from a systema. And this is the thing.
Presenter asks
36:54How difficult was it for you not to be able to visit Venezuela for five years?
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.
“I consider myself not a classical musician. I consider myself a a lover of music, you know, and a music lover.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I don't feel borders in music. You know, I enjoy music because it's music.”