Oh G*D!

Gustavo Dudamel, the Wunderkind of conductors, launched his tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic over the weekend with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, in a free concert that drew 18,000 to the Hollywood Bowl.

The symphony followed sets by a wide-ranging roster of jazz, pop and gospel musicians – Herbie Hancock, Taj Mahal, David Hidalgo, Andraé Crouch – many of them leading youth and community groups. Dudamel, who came up through Venezuela's El Sistema program of music education for young people, conducted a troupe of beginners in an arrangement of the "Ode to Joy."

The 28-year-old conductor "goes by many names," the Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed writes. "Gustavo the Great. Gustavissimo. The Dude. Some have taken to referring to the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by his initials, thus: G*D."

Swed swoons intermittently in his review of Dudamel at the Bowl:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/dudamel-bows-with-beethoven-for-all-the-ages-.html

"[T]here has never been a gala quite like this to celebrate the arrival of a conductor to a major American orchestra," notes The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini, who seemed pleasantly surprised not to hear "the Beethoven’s Ninth some might have expected from a young dynamo" . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/arts/music/05gustavo.html?ref=music

NPR's "Performance Today" will air Dudamel's opening-night program with the LA Phil at Disney Hall – Mahler's First Symphony and the premiere of John Adams' "City Noir" – in a live webcast at 10 p.m. (Eastern time) Oct. 8 on its site:

http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/

UPDATE: This G*D stuff is catching on. Daniel Nasaw, reporting for The Guardian, refers to Dudamel as "the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor and saviour of classical music":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/09/gustavo-dudamel-los-angeles-philharmonic

The NY Times' Tommasini again hears unexpected maturity in Dudamel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/arts/music/10dudamelcnd.html?hp

Dudamel led Adams' "City Noir" with "confidence and urgency," Swed writes in the LA Times. In the Mahler First, "he has found his way inside every note, and takes a listener with him":

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/dudamels-gala.html

REPRISE: Arthur Lubow's 2007 profile of Dudamel in The New York Times Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28dudamel-t.html