The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela
Monday, December 10, 2012
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela at Carnegie Hall
(Ramin Talaie for NPR)
The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by the exuberant Gustavo Dudamel, brings works of its Latin American heritage to Carnegie Hall.
For this broadcast, the orchestra presents three vibrant works from the mid 20th century – by the Mexican composers Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chavez and the Cuban-born Julián Orbón.
The SBSOV is the flagship ensemble of El Sistema, Venezuela's pioneering music education program that has been credited with lifting thousands of young musicians from lives of chaos and poverty. El Sistema includes a large network of youth orchestras whose mission is as much social as it is musical. The 31-year-old Dudamel, who also conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a product of El Sistema himself.
The concert is a highlight of Carnegie Hall's "Voices from Latin America" festival (hear Dudamel speak – en español – about the SBSOV's appearance in a clip at the bottom of this page).
Below is the archive of our live chat and Twitter conversation.
Program
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela
Gustavo Dudamel, Music Director and Conductor
CHÁVEZ Sinfonía india
ORBÓN Tres versiones sinfónicas
REVUELTAS La noche de los Mayas
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela appear courtesy of Deutsche Grammophone.
During the concert intermission, you'll hear more about Venezuela's El Sistema (The System) music program for school children, and how it's being adapted in the U.S.
To see the system in action, WQXR visited two El Sistema-inspired programs: the Union City Music Project in New Jersey and the Harmony Program, an after-school class taught in seven New York public schools (audio slideshow below).
In the following clip, Dudamel speaks – en español– about the SBSOV's appearance at the hall:
"Hello everyone. This is Gustavo Dudamel speaking. We are very happy and honored to share this special moment with all of you because we are performing our marvelous Venezuelan music, this symphony Simon Bolivar Venezuela, here in Carnegie Hall. It is a moment, as I said, that is special and extremely emotional as we are bringing our music here, to this very significant stage. I hope; we hope that you enjoy it. We send everyone a big hug with much affection. Enjoy the music."
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About Carnegie Hall Live
WQXR and Carnegie Hall in collaboration with American Public Media (APM) present a series of twelve national broadcasts live from Carnegie Hall. The 2012-13 season featured a range of orchestras, small ensembles and soloists including the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel; the pairing of American opera greats Renée Fleming and Susan Graham; and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, led by Daniel Barenboim.
Comments [10]
GUSTAVO DUDAMEL is the most exciting maestro on the world stages today. His Carnegie Hall concert of Latin American music was exhjiarating and joyous and memorable, REALLY HISTORIC !! MERRY XMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! HANDEL'S ORATORIOS ARE THE MOST REVERED OF HIS COMPOSITIONS. ONE THAT IS NOT AS OFTEN PERFORMED AS IT DESERVES TO BE IS HIS "JUDAS MACCABAEUS." ITS "SOUND AN ALARM"' IS STIRRING. IT'S MY CLOSING SELECTION ON MY SOLO DEBUT IN THE ISAAC STERN AUDITORIUM OF CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT "{LIVE" ON MY VALHALLA RECORDS CD AND MAY BE DOWNLOADED,FREE, FROM MY THREE WEBSITES. My cousin MICHAEL BLANKFORT wrote both the books and screenplays for the 1953 film THE JUGGLER Hollywood film made in Israel starring KIRK DOUGLAS and the 1950 Hollywood film BROKEN ARROW starring JAMES STEWART and JEFF CHANDLER [Cochise]. The music for THE JUGGLER was composed by opera composer GEORGE ANTHEIL, in whose opera VOLPONE I sang the tenor leading role [Mosca] in its professional world premiere in NEW YORK in 1953. ANTHEIL, famous for his opera TRANSATLANTIC and BALLET MECHANIQUE looked exactly like Peter Lorre. I am a romantischer heldentenor. I have sung four solo concerts in the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall. As part of my Ten Language Solo Debut concert at the Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall, I opened my three hour concert with the Invocazione di Orfeo from Jacopo Peri's opera EURIDICE composed in 1600, the first opera, composed in the same year as Shakespeare wrote HAMLET. It can be heard from the live performance along with my performances of SIEGFRIED, GOTTERDAMMERUNG SIEGFRIED, OTELLO, ELEAZAR, SIEGMUND, LOHENGRIN, PARSIFAL, TRISTAN AND WALTHER VON STOLZING on my three websites, www.WagnerOpera.com, , www.ShakespeareOpera.com, and www.RichardWagnerMusicDramaInstitute.com. It received rave critical notices in newspapers and magazines. My voice teachers were the legendary MET OPERA singers Alexander Kipnis, Friedrich Schorr, Martial Singher, John Brownlee, Karin Branzell and Margarete Matzenauer. In another commentary on wqxr.org one commented about all operas that were once NEW but now not new and therefore should be relegated to museum status. As an opera composer myself ["Shakespeare" and "The Political Shakespeare"] I fully comprehend the assumed urgency of recognition of the still living. However, it's important to revere and enjoy the MASTERPIECES of art, music, literature, architecture and science in its multiple formats . I am the director of the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute in Boonton, NJ where I train actors in all the Shakespeare roles and big-voiced singers in all the Wagner opera roles
The first time I heard Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra was when they performed the Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 at a BBC Proms Concert which was also available over the Internet. Following with the score, I was completely smitten by them and I've been so ever since. I'll say it again for the millionth time: such mastery at so young an age! The concert of Chavez, Orbon and Revueltas was as exciting and revealing of these master composers as one could wish for; and who doesn't look forward to the well-chosen and crowd-pleasing encores?
Fantastico! The energy and passion of these amazingly talented and big hearted musicians was felt all the way into my home in Colorado! (The multiple encore's were such fun!) Thank you Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela!!! Bravo!
Great Concert, great music and wonderful system. I´m expecting to get to listen to the one tomorrow with the choir.
Congratulations! I learned from these kind of orchestras from TV Azteca, they have built about 24 of them throughout our country.
Super!
Classical music is alive
and well in Venezuela --
and, to our great good
luck -- in New York tonight
and tomorrow night! Such life,
such love of the music and the
togetherness it engenders in the
best orchestras. Thanks to The
Dude for his commitment, and to
WQXR for bringing this to RADIO!
Bravooooo!!! Orgullo mundial sres! Que Dios los bendiga en especial a mi flautista favorito y amor Alexis Ángulo <3
What a wonderful night of unbelievably fantastic, dreamy music. This is why I am a sustaining member of WQXR and shall remain one. Thank you so much for this!!!!
Bravo Venezuela Exitos maestros... besos a mi cornista preferido Daniel Graterol (mi hijo) jejeje Dios me los bendiga.
In Montreal ready for the broadcast and have the Chavez score up
and ready to view, here is the URL for anyone interested: http://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/f1eafb5d-b726-485f-9423-eb8740092deb/fullview#page/4/mode/2up
Parabéns ao queridíssimo maestro Gustavo Dudamel pela premiação e à Orquestra Simon Bolivar pela apresentação nesse palco tão importante, o Carnegie Hall. Tenho grande admiração pela excelêncoia da música que fazem juntos e pela motivação pelo que trabalham, o acesso à beleza para todas as crianças. Vocês me dão esperança na humanidade.
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