Today, Explained - The rockstar maestro

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Gustavo Dudamel brought classical music to the masses in Los Angeles. Now he’s announced that he’s taking his talents to New York, which could revive classical music on one of its biggest stages. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You want to dance the mask, you must service the composer. You've got to supplement yourself, your ego and, yes, your identity. Lydia Tarr is kind of scary. You must, in fact, stand in front of the public and God and obliterate yourself. But don't let Tarr trick you into believing a conductor can't be wildly successful and liked by just about everyone. Take Gustavo Dudamel. He brought classical music to the masses in Los Angeles. He got so big he joined Coldplay for the halftime show at the Super Bowl in 2016.

A lot of people call Dudamel classical music's savior, and he just announced he's leaving Los Angeles for New York City. We're going to ask if he can revive classical music on one of its biggest stages on Today Explained. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs? And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals.

Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from. We're going to tell you the story of a rock star maestro today. And to do it, we reached out to Ted Braun because Ted just made a documentary about Gustavo Dudamel. He's a person who creates a very big tent for listeners in which people with a lot of interests from a lot of different backgrounds, with a lot of different ideas about what orchestras play and ought to play can come and gather. He's a force that unites people and brings them together. And I think in large measure, because he believes that music has that capacity, that it's not for elites or groups of a specific sort, but for everybody.

Tell us his story. Where does it begin? He is the son of a salsa trombone player. He grew up in the town of Barquisimeto in Venezuela and was fortunate to have come into the world at a time that a music education program had just taken hold in Venezuela, a program called El Sistema. And that translates to literally the system? Literally to the system. Instruments and teachers for any child anywhere in the country,

regardless of their ability to pay. But it's not just about music. It's unashamed social engineering, keeping kids off the streets and away from drugs and gangs. You learn in groups rather than with an individual teacher. As soon as you have contact with people who are learning alongside you but ahead of you, you start contact with people who are learning alongside you, but ahead of you, you start working with them so that students very quickly become mentors and teachers to the new students

who are coming in. And this creates a very strong bond and sense of community. I'm a result of a program. You know, my education is coming from playing in the orchestra since the very beginning and having the opportunity to interact with other children and learn together. So that action, for me, that I understand because I was inside of that, is very powerful. How does Gustavo Dudamel do in this program, El Sistema? He crushes it.

As a little kid, he wanted to play the trombone, but his arms were too short, so they suggested the violin. Rough. But we're talking here about a world-class conductor. How does he make that shift from failed trombonist to successful violinist to conductor? He makes that shift by complete accident.

He was in the violin section of his youth orchestra in Barquisimeto. I was there. The conductor didn't arrive. I started as a game with the orchestra to conduct them. And suddenly, everything became serious.

And so the story goes. The conductor arrived and watched what was happening and thought, maybe we ought to encourage this as more than an accidental incident. Maybe we ought to talk about you studying conducting. And that was how it began. And very quickly, and we're talking, I think he was 12 or 13 at the time. Very quickly, he showed a real aptitude for it.

And he's so good that he jumps from Venezuela to Los Angeles? By way of Sweden. Okay. He won a very important conducting competition in his, I think, late teens or early 20s. And at that time, the conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. That brought him to a lot of people's attention, including the music director of the L.A. Phil at the time, Esa-Pekka Salomon,

who said to the CEO of the Phil at the time, Deborah Borda, he said, I've just seen a conducting animal. I remember I was in college, maybe finishing up college around the time his conductorship was announced. And I just remember the marketing. You know, you were seeing a conductor all over the town,

and it was like 50% hair. Aside from the hair, the first thing you might notice about Gustavo Dudamel is the joy. There was a lot of hair. There still is. A little less, but yeah. Ain't that how it goes.

And beyond the hair, you could tell that they were really sort of announcing the arrival of a new star to a city of stars. The L.A. Phil understood that they had an exceptional talent. I mean, really a once-in-a-generation talent in Gustavo. I think that the atmosphere exists here for him to really change musical history. They also understood that he was Venezuelan, and Los Angeles is a city that is very much a Latin city. He was young, and he was charismatic and attractive, and he has a very expansive view of music,

and he wanted to bring new audiences to L.A. That was a big part of what made coming here attractive to him. Help people understand what a music director like Gustavo Dudamel does once he arrives to Los Angeles. It may seem obvious, but it's super important. He conducts the concerts. And if those concerts aren't riveting and magical and driving people into the theater,

and if the musicians aren't inspired to play really well, nothing much happens. Second of all, he's the one who determines the programs, the repertoire, what pieces are gonna be played, in which concerts over the course of an entire season. And he plans that out years in advance. He's also responsible for deciding who the new members of the orchestra are going to be. They also become the public face of the institution. To the extent that the institution,

the LA Phil was very interested in this, is interested in new endeavors and reaching out new different ways, they can lead that and determine those directions. So those are some of the things that a music director does. So what does Dudamel do that is different? He came to L.A. with this profound experience of music's transformative capacity for young people and a desire to expand upon what was already in this city

in the way of music education for youth and reach underserved communities, give opportunities to kids who would not otherwise have it, and make that a part of the city's life and a part of the life of the L.A. Phil. And he galvanized all of that and spearheaded it and helped give it a home. It's such an important thing for young artists

to have a good space where to build their dreams and to be inspired, because the spaces inspire us. There's now a center in Inglewood, the Beckman Center, in a building designed by Frank Gehry, where kids from around the city who would otherwise never have had access to instruments or teachers or fellow musicians or audiences to perform now play and now have a home. And that institution, the Youth Orchestra of LA, YOLA, wouldn't be here if it weren't for Gustavo. He and I had a conversation before we started making the film. And he said, Ted,

at this point in my life, I know pretty well how to conduct. For me, the big question is why? Why play this particular piece of music at this particular moment? And in that way that is kind of ineffable, has a sense of the times, a sense of the zeitgeist. And even though he's planning programs years in the head, somehow they land at a moment that is resonant. He also has an incredible gift for analogy. Most of the communication between a conductor and orchestra is nonverbal. It's movements, it's the shake of the head, a lift of the eyebrow. But when he does talk, he can express things in non-technical terms that they're like carbonation. They kind of just give a little bubble to everybody that's working and makes them do a little better.

There's an analogy that he uses in the film Viva Maestro, where he's trying to get something out of the chorus. It's a little flat, guys. He says, More like champagne, less like moonshine. And you hear that, and even if you're not a musician, you've got an idea of what you're supposed to do. He's got an idea of music that isn't aspirational. It's something that he inhabits. It's something that he lives.

He listens to and enjoys and plays all kinds of music and has since he's a kid. So it's natural for him to program a Hollywood Bowl concert with Billie Eilish. Or to invite the most popular rock and roll band in in Latin America, Cafe Tecuba, to perform with the LA Phil. He sees music in very very big broad terms and is able to bring audiences for that reason, into the concert hall that wouldn't otherwise be there.

When he conducts, the bowl is packed. And when he's collaborating with popular musicians, it's full of overflowing. Wow. So he's a wild success, which is what ultimately leads him to committing the ultimate act of Los Angeles betrayal, which is moving to New York. I did not see his departure from Los Angeles coming. And in the weeks since the announcement has come, I've realized that this wasn't betrayal, this was development.

He came to L.A. in his 20s, and when he moves to New York, he'll be 45. He was ready for a new challenge, and being as accomplished as he is, there aren't a lot of places where he can really get that kind of challenge. He says something in our film about rehearsing Beethoven's Fifth.

He said, comfort is not good. Tension is good. And I think that is the secret of the spirit of this piece. And I think that's true of an artistic life. I think comfort is not good. You need tension, you need the challenge, you need that little bit of uncertainty, that new test of your abilities.

A little new tension, I think, is a spark for him. Since the day his arrival was announced in Los Angeles, and perhaps even before then, people have been calling this guy classical music's savior. Has he ever shown signs of bearing that weight on his shoulders? No, because I think he's wise enough to know that he's not got that responsibility. That's something that some other people have put upon him and he has a very clear idea of what he can do and a great deal of confidence in that and a desire to grow and change but no he he sees the world for what it is and he knows that classical music has to evolve but he he said something funny

to me he said even the word doesn't work anymore. We have to come up with a new term. He said, when I talk to young people about classics, they're talking about the Stones and the Beatles and the Beach Boys. He says, we need a new word. So yeah, he's aware that in order to remain a vital presence and not simply a museum experience, there needs to be renewal and evolution. And that, in his case, that involves rethinking the kind of music we play, the kind of audiences we want to attract, and the kinds of musicians we're recruiting and bringing into the orchestra. Ted Braun, his documentary about Dudamel is called Viva Maestro. I'm told it's currently streaming on HBO Max.

The state of classical music in America and what we can really expect Dudamel to do about it when we're back on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC,

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Can classical music written by a bunch of straight Austro-German church-going white guys exalt us individually as well as collectively? And who, may I ask, gets to decide that? Today Explained is back. Gustavo Dudamel sounds a lot like the solution, but let's talk about the problem. People who know classical music call Drew McManus the orchestra insider. He's got all the tea, and he says classical music is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. The way it used to market and sell itself for 50 plus years was you're a better person for attending. We have these rules. You come in here, you can assign a degree of affluence by simply being a ticket buyer.

If people can afford the eye-watering opera prices and, to a lesser extent, the cost of a ballet ticket, they can afford to dress sufficiently well not to cause offense. Back in the 60s, 70s, the 80s, that worked. Until it didn't. The perception on someone else telling you the way you're supposed to feel, the way you're supposed to value something else, moved very much in the other direction. And unfortunately, when you're doing something the same way for 50 years, it's kind of hard to pivot. At the root of that is that existential identity crisis. Tell me how dramatically orchestras across the country are impacted by this identity crisis right now. Orchestras are impacted by what I was calling the identity crisis

on some really profound levels. The most immediate is going to be financial. Orchestra finances are impacted a great deal by how well an orchestra engages with its audience. And the most basic level of that is ticket sales. If you only have 50 to 60% of your haul sold out, A, that's a financial hit, but it also kind of sucks away the mojo and energy that an orchestra has. So it decreases your donations. It makes the organization less sexy for board members and large donors to become a part of.

And it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in a negative sense. How many of them are in a tough spot right now financially? The vast majority. I don't think that should come as a surprise to anybody. And it's not the first time the field in the last 20 years has hit this. When the housing bubble burst, that was the really first big major financial crisis that the field as a whole felt. Because orchestras get their revenue from three primary sources, ticket sales, service revenue. Then there's contributed revenue, donations, both big and

small. And the last one's going to be endowment, which is investment income, and then grants, foundations, government support. But when you take something like the housing market crash that gutted the stock market, you had orchestras have a sudden and unexpected drop in their expected annual income. And for organizations that project their expenses anywhere from two to six years in advance because of labor contracts. That's a major problem and not something that you can just write off as a loss one year. With the majority of symphony orchestras in the United States, at least the major ones in financial straits right now, I would like to hear

what's on the table to fix this identity crisis in classical music in America. Well, and this is where I think things get positive, because it has forced the orchestra field as a whole to realize that this great art, you appreciate us, we're going to tell you what to think of us, we set the rules. They have no choice but to change that them because that just doesn't work. And you're seeing orchestras begin to focus more on the benefits of the concert experience from the ticket buyer's perspective. Things are starting to change because orchestras are beginning to realize that people want

to belong, and it's more than just simply attending to feel like you're belonging. You have to be able to understand and empathize from their perspective why something is important. And there are a couple of orchestras that do have some really good marketing campaigns that are starting to focus on that. One of them is Elmhurst Symphony. You go to their website, there's a great big photo on the front. It's not of a face, it's not of a music director. It's not even of the musicians. It's of a parent and a smiling child who are talking to a musician who you only see the back of their head, but they're in the hall itself. It's not

anywhere else, but this direct engagement. And then they have the headline, Make Musical Memories. I love that. You know, I'm actually sitting directly beneath. I never really think about this. This is a WQXR marketing campaign to get people to care about Beethoven and they made it in the style of a Shepard Fairey Obey poster and it says, Obey-toven. Right. Yeah, yeah. Another example of trying to make classical music more accessible.

How does this relate to programming, Drew? I can't help but notice that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which is close to my home here in D.C. or or the L.A. Philharmonic, which is where my mom lives, they seem to be doing more, you know, live scoring of movies. I think maybe they both had Home Alones this year, where you could go enjoy the score while watching the movie live. That's one way that orchestras have been changing. Their programming has also become much more diverse, which is fabulous. They're doing far more contemporary composers. People tend to forget, even like, we'll use your Beethoven example.

Beethoven wrote the Emperor Concerto because he thought Napoleon was going to be this great, wonderful thing, and it turned out, you know, Napoleon was kind of a dick. So he scratched out the original title and the inscription and instead, you know, called it what he ended up calling it, just the Emperor Concerto. But that was a reflection of Beethoven's time.

It meant something to people differently than if you go listen to this today, which is now this precious thing. It's still a beautiful piece of music and emotionally deep, but we've lost that immediate reflection of what music is in our contemporary society. You're also seeing a much more diverse group of composers. It's just not dead white guys or even live white guys. There's a much broader sense of a BIPOC community who are amazing composers out there.

It sounds like what you're saying here, in sum, Drew, is that symphony orchestras across the United States are finally putting a little more effort into trying to cater to their audience, which sounds like something that they probably should have been doing the whole time. Well, at least for the last 30, 40 years, yes. I mean, ideally in the perfect world for the whole time, but I'm also willing to be a realist and say, if you want to go back in the 50s and 60s, that was not the way America operated, unfortunately. You didn't have to do it back then. Exactly, right. I'm curious as, you know, the orchestra insider, what your opinion is as to how much influence Gustavo Dudamel can have

leading one of the biggest orchestras in the country and now moving to the other he's in a position to where if he can change something that is as entrenched and as old school as the New York Philharmonic and get them to change their missioned activity toward being meaningful to the surrounding New York community, the greater boroughs, creating something like an L-Systema program that the orchestra doesn't just give minimal money and lip service to, but a real multi-decade investment that lasts well past when Dudamel will be there. That's where he can become an example of how to be that catalyst that changes and helps orchestras break out of this decades-old cycle. Drew McManus, orchestra insider. He's an orchestra consultant based in Chicago,

and he hasn't seen Tar. Doesn't want to, believe it or not. Victoria Chamberlain composed our show today. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard fact-checked. Paul Robert Mounsey mixed and mastered. Amina Alsadi, Matthew Collette, Siona Petros, Amanda Llewellyn, Miles Bryan, Hadi Mawagdi,

Abishai Artsy, and of course, Noelle King. Round up the team here. Today Explained is distributed by WNYC on the radio. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder, Noam Hassenfeld, and Coldplay, I guess, now? Wherever you are