In 2005  made the first of several memorable visits to Venezuela. I was composing an opera, A Flowering Tree, loosely inspired by Mozart’s The Magic Flute, that was to premiere not in Caracas, but in Vienna as part of Peter Sellars’ New Crowned Hope festival. The festival was a typically whimsical Sellars brainchild: an inspired mash-up of artists and performers from all over the globe, from Africa, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America. For Vienna it was something defiantly and deliciously off-grid, provocative and colorful. The plan for my opera was to have both the marvelous Schola Cantorum de Caracas chorus and a Venezuelan orchestra created especially for the event by José Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema. We would rehearse in Venezuela and then all pile on a plane and go to Vienna for the premiere.  

Mi primera mañana en Caracas me llevaron al centro de El Sistema, un enorme complejo de hormigón con salas de ensayo y locales de práctica. Abreu, un hombre tranquilo y modesto, calvo y con unas gafas enormes, me recordaba a las fotos que había visto de algunos intelectuales latinoamericanos, como Jorge Luis Borges, y de hecho más tarde descubrí que no solo era un director de orquesta profesor de gran talento, sino que también era licenciado en Economía. «Tenemos una sorpresa especial para ti», me dijo con una sonrisa, mientras me conducía a una gran sala de ensayo donde se habían reunido una enorme orquesta de más de 100 instrumentistas, un coro de aproximadamente el mismo número y varios cantantes solistas. Entonces entró tranquilamente un joven con vaqueros y camiseta, de pelo negro rizado y que parecía tener unos 18 años (en realidad tenía 24), y se subió al podio. Dio un rápido golpe de arco al que los violines respondieron con un frenético trémolo, que a su vez desencadenó una violenta oleada en los violonchelos y los contrabajos. Me dije a mí mismo: «La Segunda de Mahler… ¡y un sábado por la mañana en Caracas! Sé que voy a recordar esto». 

They went straight through to the end, the young conductor doing it all from memory. That was, of course, Gustavo. Every now and then Señor Abreu would gently touch my arm and beam at me in delight. He had reason to be so proud. Not only had he created this center with its multiple orchestras and programs for music education and performance here and elsewhere in Venezuela, but he had also mentored this immensely talented young conductor from his early adolescence, providing him with the kind of opportunities and support that would be almost impossible to find in other countries. By the time Gustavo was in his mid-20s, he had already conducted much of the major orchestral repertory and was a fully developed and confident conductor with the experience that normally would take 30 to 40 years to acquire.

I returned a year later to rehearse A Flowering Tree, this time not in Caracas but in Barquisimeto, located about 200 miles to the west and the city where Gustavo was born and grew up. We rehearsed evenings in a warehouse-style space with windows open to the surrounding neighborhood. Parents and their kids would perch in the window frames and listen. The heat and humidity were onerous and only partially mollified by several huge electric fans that made so much noise we got into a rhythm of rehearsing until drenched in perspiration, then taking a break for the fans to roar until things cooled down. My music was a challenge for some of the players, but the vibe was always joyful, and I returned from each rehearsal with a sense of having participated in a truly communal experience, something quite different from more businesslike orchestra rehearsals back home. This convivial sensibility of music-making was the environment in which Gustavo grew up.  

Si buscas información sobre Barquisimeto, verás que a veces se la conoce como la «Capital Musical de Venezuela». La gente es, al igual que Gustavo, cálida y generosa. El Conservatorio Vicente Emilio Sojo acoge cada semana a más de 1000 estudiantes y miembros de la comunidad. Se trata de una ciudad en la que la vida económica es increíblemente dura, pero en la que la música —¡nada menos que la «música clásica»!— se valora profundamente. En ambas ciudades, todos los adolescentes que conocí parecían pensar que Tchaikovsky y Beethoven eran tan geniales como cualquier música pop que tuvieran en sus radiocasetes. Lo que también me llamó la atención fue lo hermoso que era el paisaje circundante, con sus montañas lejanas, sus colinas onduladas y sus verdes praderas. La gente suele tener dificultades para salir adelante, pero para ellos la música es esencial.  

Gustavo’s astonishing talent was immediately obvious to me from that one morning Mahler rehearsal, and it continues to this day to affect any musician who encounters him. In rehearsal he communicates with occasionally colorful metaphors and a self-effacing humor, the latter a quality not always present in the job description of maestro. He has an enviable capacity to absorb a score quickly, knows the “core” repertoire so thoroughly it’s almost like instant recall for him. But beyond the brilliance and virtuosity of his art he is blessed with a kind of wisdom that normally comes only after many years. You’d say, “He was born already wise.” His is a sort of intrapersonal maturity, a self-confidence free of vanity and ego that puts everyone, collaborators, listeners, performers, at ease. 

A lo largo de los años transcurridos desde que nos conocimos, he tenido el placer y el privilegio de escucharle dirigir muchas de mis obras, algunas de ellas en estreno mundial, la mayoría con la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles. Y he presenciado o me he enterado de interpretaciones de otras obras contemporáneas que ha dirigido, algunas de ellas sumamente complejas, siempre con el mismo cuidado y comprensión intuitiva que aporta a Mahler, Beethoven o Stravinsky: partituras realmente exigentes de Oliver Knussen, Andrew Norman, Gabriela Ortiz, Ellen Reid y Thomas Adès.

In 2009 the Philharmonic asked me to compose a piece for Gustavo’s first official program as Music Director. I wanted to do something that not only celebrated his arrival on the scene but that would also include my “take” on LA history and culture. The result was City Noir, a jazz-inflected symphony infused with tropes from film noir scores from the ’40s and ’50s. The piece turned out to be a bear (I know because I’ve since conducted it many times), and Gustavo had to learn it, rehearse it, and perform it amidst a week of almost absurd media attention. It was an “only in LA” event—I can testify because my wife and I were seated next to Tom Hanks and his wife. I don’t know how he managed to keep his sanity during that very intense couple of days with a myriad of celebrities, newscasters, well-wishers, and family all begging for attention, but what we who know him understand is that once he steps onto the podium his powers of concentration take over, and he has the extraordinary gift of focusing on the matter at hand.  

I’ve watched Gustavo at work with YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), an ensemble of his own creation modeled after his own youthful experiences and populated largely by Hispanic teens from the greater LA area. He works entirely without condescension, treating the young players as if they were the Philharmonic, shaping phrases, fine-tuning tricky rhythmic passages, adjusting balances, and, with his laser-sharp ear, getting intonation spot-on. Anyone lucky enough to attend a YOLA rehearsal can understand how this contact with young musicians recharges his batteries and keeps him inspired. I remember one time when he burst out of his dressing room shouting excitedly, “John, John, come look at this!” He took out his iPhone and proudly showed me a video of him, having returned to Caracas after a long absence, conducting the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in Short Ride in a Fast Machine, a piece that I’ve heard some of the best professional orchestras come to grief with. They were absolutely rocking, and his delight was palpable (and so was mine).  

Es una celebridad, una estrella excepcional en el firmamento de la música clásica, pero se toma su fama con ligereza, con su modestia característica. Su mente musical se siente cómoda ante los retos más intimidantes, pero, en el fondo, es un alma cálida y generosa y, al igual que aquellos amigos que hice en Barquisimeto, es la esencia misma de la humanidad en estado puro.

Gustavo Dudamel dirigido las siguientes obras de John Adams:  

City Noir (estreno mundial), Harmonium, Absolute Jest, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Grand Pianola Music, Slonimsky’s Earbox, The Gospel According to the Other Mary (estreno mundial), Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? (estreno mundial), Frenzy: a short symphony (estreno en EE. UU.), I Still Dance, Nixon in China (Ópera de París) 

John Adams es compositor y director de orquesta ocupa la Cátedra Creativa John y Samantha Williams en la Filarmónica de Los Ángeles.