A high note for Venezuela

GUSTAVO DUDAMEL’S appointment as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic probably surprised some classical music fans in Venezuela, but not because they didn’t eventually expect such an achievement from the young conductor.

It was common knowledge in Venezuela’s music circles that Dudamel had received standing ovations at concert halls in Milan, Florence, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Washington and Los Angeles, and that critics routinely described him as a charismatic prodigy. Dudamel, 26, is from Barquisimeto, a city of about 1 million in western Venezuela. He was the main director of the Swedish Gothenburg Symphony before landing the L.A. post, which he will start in 2009.

Although nobody from the Venezuelan media was in Los Angeles covering the April 9 announcement of Dudamel’s appointment, news of the event blanketed the country’s broadcast media that night and made the front page of most Venezuelan newspapers the next day.

Not a small achievement considering that April 11 is the anniversary date of the failed coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002, and both the government and opposition parties use the occasion to make political news in the deeply divided country.

Nevertheless, a huge photograph of Dudamel appeared on the front page of El Nacional, a leading newspaper, with the headline: “Dudamel, the laureate Venezuelan, will head the L.A. Phil.”

The broadcast media portrayed the appointment as the internationalization of the phenomenon Venezuelans call Dudamelmania. “Dudamelmania,” said one reporter, “keeps on growing, and now every time [Dudamel] gives a concert in Caracas, it’s sold out, and you have to arrive well in advance [of the curtain] and be prepared to fight to keep your seat.”

One newspaper, Tal Cual, celebrated its seventh year with an 80-page special supplement praising the glories of the 31-year-old Venezuelan music-education system that produced Dudamel.

The National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras was started by Jose Antonio Abreu, an economist by training who also plays the organ, piano and harpsichord. His dream, as recalled in the newspaper by his friend, violinist Jose Francisco del Castillo, was to assemble an orchestra of youngsters that would be able to play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The first orchestra was assembled in the mid-1970s, and the two friends started raising money and widening their circle by adding music teachers and administrators whose love of music exceeded their need for money. A second young orchestra was formed in 1976, and what is now known as the “system” was born.

The program uses government and private funds to provide musical instruments and instruction free to any child who wants to join. It now serves about 250,000 youngsters nationwide. Working through 120 training centers, the system has seeded about 200 youth and child orchestras across Venezuela. The program’s success has spawned imitators in other Latin American countries.

Dudamel began playing the violin at age 5 and was composing concerts at 8. By 1995, at 14, he was already conducting an orchestra within the system, and four years later, Abreu took charge of his musical education.

Venezuelans say Dudamel may now be their most famous countryman in the world of classical music, but he’s not the only great young Venezuelan musician who has attracted global attention. Edicson Ruiz, a graduate of the system who was 17 years old when the Berlin Philharmonic first tried to sign him up, has been playing the bass for five years with that orchestra, which is considered by many critics to be the world’s best.

Some exuberant Venezuelan journalists have argued that Venezuela’s musical culture ranks among the world’s best. Truth is, Venezuela lacks the musical tradition even of other Latin American countries, including Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, which have produced such composers as Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chavez (Mexico), Heitor Villa-Lobos (Brazil) and conductor Daniel Barenboim (Argentina). So far, the Venezuelan music education system has not produced a generation of young composers on par with Mexico’s. Yet it’s indisputable that its musician training program produces top-notch orchestra players.

Venezuela used to be known for exporting baseball players to the major leagues. Its bombastic anti-American president, Chavez, is now the face of Venezuela. But musicians like Dudamel and Ruiz are fostering a perception of Venezuela as a cultural place by joining world famous orchestras.

A line in an editorial introducing the special supplement in Tal Cual suggests just how important Dudamel’s achievement is for Venezuela at a time of political turbulence. Loosely translated, it said, “As the nation struggles to find its soul, the ‘system’ brings about the only sound basis for reconciliation.”