Gustavo Dudamel
Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt and Lilly Disney Chair
About this Artist
Gustavo Dudamel is committed to creating a better world through music. His belief in art’s power to inspire and transform lives fuels his unifying presence on and off the podium, his commitment to education and access for underserved communities, and his mission to expand the reach of classical music. His rise, from humble beginnings as a child in Venezuela to an unparalleled career of artistic and social achievements, offers living proof that culture can bring meaning to the life of an individual and greater harmony to the world at large. He currently serves as the Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. In the 2025–26 season Gustavo Dudamel becomes the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Music and Artistic Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic before becoming the Orchestra’s Music and Artistic Director in September 2026, continuing a legacy that includes Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini, and Leonard Bernstein. Throughout 2025 Dudamel celebrates the 50th anniversary of El Sistema, honoring the global impact of José Antonio Abreu’s visionary education program across five generations.
From appearances from the United Nations and the White House in the United States to the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Sweden, Dudamel has served as a passionate advocate for music education and social integration through art, sharing his own experience in Venezuela’s El Sistema program as an example of how music can give a sense of purpose. In 2007 Dudamel, the LA Phil, and its community partners founded YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), which now provides more than 1,700 young people with free instruments, music instruction, academic support, and leadership training, while also welcoming them to YOLA’s purpose-built, Frank Gehry-designed facility, the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center at Inglewood. In 2012 Dudamel launched the Dudamel Foundation — which he co-chairs with his wife, actress and director María Valverde — with the goal of expanding access to music and the arts for young people by providing tools and opportunities to shape their creative futures. The Dudamel Foundation has hosted its Encuentros initiatives around the world, from Spain to the Hollywood Bowl, as a way to explore cultural unity and celebrate harmony, equality, dignity, beauty, and respect through music.
As a conductor, Dudamel is one of the few classical musicians to become a bona fide pop-culture phenomenon and has worked tirelessly to ensure that music reaches an ever-greater audience. In 2025 he leads the LA Phil in two performances at Coachella, marking the first time a major orchestra has performed at the festival. In 2024 Dudamel was the first classical musician to be featured on the cover of Billboard. He was the first classical artist to participate in the Super Bowl halftime show and the youngest conductor ever to lead the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day Concert. He has performed at global mainstream events, from the Academy Awards to the Olympics, and has worked with musical icons like Billie Eilish, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Gwen Stefani, Coldplay, and Nas. Dudamel conducted the score to Steven Spielberg’s new adaptation of West Side Story, and at John Williams’s personal request, he guest conducted the opening and closing credits of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. His film and television appearances include Sesame Street, The Simpsons, Mozart in the Jungle,Trolls World Tour, and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. A documentary on his life titled ¡Viva Maestro! was released in 2022, and in 2019 Dudamel was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. His father was a trombonist and his mother a voice teacher, and he grew up listening to music and conducting his toys to old recordings. He began violin lessons as a child but was drawn to conducting from an early age. As a member of his youth orchestra, he put down his violin and picked up the baton when the conductor was running late. He studied conducting with Rodolfo Saglimbeni, and in 1996 was named Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, where José Antonio Abreu spotted his talent and became his mentor. In 1999 Dudamel was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, composed of El Sistema graduates. He gained international attention when he won the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition in 2004. He went on to become Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony (2007–12), of which he now holds the title of Honorary Conductor. Dudamel’s talent was widely recognized, notably by other prominent conductors of the day, but it was the Los Angeles Philharmonic that took the initiative in 2007 to sign the then 26-year-old Dudamel as Music Director, beginning in the 2009–10 season. Dudamel also held the position of Music Director of the Paris Opéra from 2021 to 2023, leading acclaimed productions of Puccini’s Turandot and Tosca, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and John Adams’s Nixon in China, adding to an extensive operatic resume that includes more than 30 staged, semi-staged, and concert productions around the world.