It should be VERY interesting as reportedly, it is a great orchestra!!!!

NEC to Present Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra, Brilliant Young Conductor Gustavo Dudamel in 3-day Residency, Nov. 6--9

The Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, under its brilliant young maestro Gustavo Dudamel, will participate in a three-day Boston residency Nov. 6—9, as part of its first American tour. The visit will feature the orchestra’s debut concert at Boston’s Symphony Hall, Nov. 6, followed by a day-long chamber music seminar and a joint orchestral concert with New England Conservatory students. The Conservatory is presenting the orchestra in association with the Celebrity Series of Boston and the Boston Symphony Orchestra—-a first-time collaboration between these three musical institutions.

At its Symphony Hall concert, the SBNYO will perform the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, and a selection of Music from Latin America. Program details for remaining performances will be announced at a later date.

Tickets for the Symphony Hall concert will be available for purchase by subscribers to the Celebrity Series and BSO beginning this spring and will go on sale later in the summer for individual purchase at the Symphony Hall and NEC Jordan Hall box offices and through the Celebrity Series. To receive a season brochure from the Celebrity Series, visit the website. To receive the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s season brochure, visit the BSO website To contact the NEC Box Office, visit the NEC website or call 617-585-1260.

The SBNYO is the flagship ensemble of Venezuela’s 31-year old National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras, a monumental program of music education that serves over 250,000 children and young adults, most of whom live in impoverished conditions. It was founded by José Antonio Abreu, an economist, organist and politician, who saw in the discipline of musical training and the communal spirit of the orchestral an opportunity to transform children’s lives.

From a start of 11 children rehearsing in a parking garage, the program has grown exponentially. Today, El Sistema, as it is familiarly known, is budgeted by the federal government at $29 million, employs 15,000 music teachers, operates 90 music schools, and feeds into 30 professional symphony orchestras within Venezuela alone. Some of its alumni have made international careers, like Dudamel—who won the 2004 Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, regularly leads the world’s major orchestras, and was recently named successor to Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For many years, New England Conservatory has been informally supporting El Sistema and in 2005 signed a friendship agreement celebrating the relationship. The school regularly sends faculty—including violinist Donald Weilerstein, pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, violinist Marylou Speaker Churchill, Preparatory School Dean Mark Churchill--to coach the young musicians. NEC has also has organized two tours of Venezuela by its Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and jointly created the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, which enlists young instrumentalists from throughout the North and South American continents to rehearse, play and tour together.

I did not mean to go but last night at 6.30PM I looked again at the program and realized that they substituted the “selections of music from Latin America” to Beethoven 7 Symphony. That brought the concert into very different legion, making it very ambitious program:

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra
Beethoven 7
Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

It was an hour and a have before the consent and the Symphony Hall was just a few blocks away… The tickets were sold out but I got “from hands” a subscription ticker for $22 (!) with the best sit in house, at list at my very favorite sit – what a lack! So, I was in…

I have to admit that I love the  Selebrity Series concerts generally. A touring performers stop by in the city for one single concert and this facts has some influences for the performers and to the listeners.

http://www.celebrityseries.org/

So, the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and the Gustavo Dudamel…

Well, it was good concert and I very much appreciate that I went there. The last part of the concert, the prolong encore part, where the very large orchestra (52 first violins!!!) celebrated the instrumental youth, with the playing while dancing salsa on the stage and throwing the instilments into air  was a fun to watch, throw it has little to do with music itself. Still, as the national orchestra celebratory event it was kind of appropriate and quite tastefully performed.

The sound of Orchestra is very interesting. I happened to have for a while all 3 recordings of the orchestra and I knew what to expect – still live they sound better. The most distinctive quality of this orchestra is absolutely fantastic reliability of the Orchestra played together. There was some very quick bond between the players in the section and between the sections and the entire, very large orchestra sounds like a very niclsy oiled machine. During the whole program, long and complex program, there was practically no bloopers or significant mistake, everything was very nicely balanced – very uncommonly seen in the Symphony Hall of the damn BSO. It was very disciplined and perfectly measured, perfectly evangelistic orchestral play – perhaps even too perfect. I think the reasoning is that the members of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela did not starters like most of the musicians their careers in solo practices and learn instilments and music already playing in the orchestra’s section – looking and listing each other and coordinating this play with others… The result was very obvious – the phenomenally integrated orchestral sound.

Was anything else worth to mention positively? Nope, it was it, as the music that the Orchestra made was quite tedious. With all positive intention of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela there was a lot that they did not have. The players did not have charm and charisma. The leads of the sections had no class and allure. The instruments had low quality of Absolute Tone. The conductor’s reading of the program was dull and very unthrilling. The consent was a perfect exercise of the notes rendering and hardly became a musical event.

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was probably the most boring I even heard – and it is very simple to male me to be bored with this price – I do not like it generally. Two weeks ago the same Simon Bolivar played it with LA and it was much different. The Venezuelains did it with no excitement or enthusiasm at all. The Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony nicely played by horribly interpreted. It made the Symphony very simplistic, unsophisticated and very primitive. Many nuances of the Beethoven’s might were completely overlooked. Simon Bolivar in Beethoven compressed the range of the orchestra, never went soft, never pronounced any phrase with fine precision or sophistication. It was kind of McDonald’sd cooked Beethoven – I did not like it at all. The Bernstein’s West Side Story was a piece more suited for Orchestra. I do not like much about this music but in context of that jazzy and snappy “Musiciana of Americana” the Orchestra sounded more “alive” and a little more exiting.

It was not much different that what I expected. Still it was a good lesson for up Bostonians how a bunch of the Venezuelain kids overplayed the snobby and overpaid BSO’s hoodlums. I hope the member of BSO were there and had a chance to learn… Now, what I would like to hear would be James Levine warming his hands on the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela…

There was so much publicity around this performance last weeks.  I heard the whole recording on NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113551695

…and really did not like it. Today the WENH - the New Hampshire PBS station broadcasted the TV version and I tool efforts to watch. I even hated it more than I did over radio. I have no idea why everyone creates so much noise about it.

The "Critical Industry" has long fed on itself rather than its putative subject.  And once the buzz gets going for The Kids, or the New Conductor From ..., it takes something really violent to untrack it.

How tired I am of the endless NPR "reviews" of crappy, pop-ish "music" gone over in excruciating detail by people who learned at the feet of a previous generation of Morons!

OK, Everyone: line up for your Participation Awards!

Paul S

The NY Times article about the stupid craze that the industry creates around Gustavo Dudamel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/arts/music/13dudamel.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

It is one of those moments when it a shame to be an American. What is the most unpleasant behind all of this stupid hype that I do not hear any serious interpretations from Dudamel and his new orchestra. The very mediocre Mahler Firsts that they did a few months ago become bestseller and runs atop all charts… but, I am sorry, it was very Pure Mahler First. I wonder how the people who live in Los Angeles fin the sound of their orchestra change with Dudamel arrival.