On Wednesday night, Gustavo Dudamel was reflecting on the awe he felt the first time he stood on the plaza of Lincoln Center as a young violinist in the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela.
He was facing an adoring crowd of around 2,200 at the New York Philharmonic’s season-opening gala inside David Geffen Hall, this time as the orchestra’s music and artistic director.
“It’s like being embraced by family, all these wonderful people,” said Dudamel, the 45-year-old Venezuelan conductor who earlier this month officially began his five-year tenure.
Among the crowd were the director Steven Spielberg; the actors Alec Baldwin, Bernadette Peters and Fiona Shaw; the fashion designer Carolina Herrera; and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who presented the conductor with a plaque congratulating him for his commitment to the arts.
Dudamel, who led the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the past 17 years, is kicking off his inaugural season by leading 14 concerts in three halls over three weeks. Earlier this month, a star-studded, sold-out concert at Radio City Music Hall hosted by the actor Liev Schreiber featured appearances by the singers Lizzo and St. Vincent. Next Friday, Dudamel will take the orchestra on its first European tour in a decade, with the first concert to be held in Paris.
He has said he wants to end the lingering perception of the classical arts as inaccessible. Dudamel appears to be making strides, at least in New York, where his face is plastered on posters across Midtown: Ticket revenues for this season have jumped 8 percent compared with this time last year, and subscription sales have topped $12 million, a record.
“We are on a mission of connecting people through the beauty of music, through the beauty of gathering together to enjoy something that is so spiritual,” said Dudamel, whose preferred rehearsal uniform of a black T-shirt, black jeans and sneakers — the better to accommodate his full-body conducting style — would feel as at home on the street as in a concert hall.
Wednesday night’s gala, which raised $6.6 million for the orchestra, began with a cocktail reception on the Lincoln Center plaza, where the Brooklyn-based Latin band Los Hacheros and the all-female mariachi band Flor de Toloache took turns playing sets on twin stages as the center’s fountain gurgled nearby.
Blocks with turquoise and pink letters at the top of the plaza stairs spelled out “G-U-S-T-A-V-O D-U-D-A-M-E-L,” and banners in English and Spanish above the stages read “Nuestra nuevo era comienza ya” — “Our new era starts now.” Guests in sequined gowns and bow-tie-topped suits sipped cocktails and loaded plates with arepas — stuffed corn cakes popular in Venezuela — from a topping bar.
Alec Baldwin, the actor and classical music aficionado who is a member of the orchestra’s board of directors, posed for photos with his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, a yoga instructor and author.
Baldwin was excited, he said, about Dudamel’s ability to attract a broad audience.
“I think he’s going to bring a lot of people in,” said Baldwin, who had grown out his hair for a role in an upcoming Netflix series, “The Roman,” set in the high-stakes world of a modern Las Vegas casino. (“They told me to try to be something different,” Baldwin explained.)
Dudamel opened the 80-minute concert, with several Philharmonic players attired in vibrant pink, green and blue dresses behind a field of flowers, with works by composers from across the Americas.
The lineup included “Four Dances from Estancia” by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera; the Venezuelan composer Juan Bautista Plaza’s “Fuga Criolla”; “The Mestizo Waltz” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Gabriela Lena Frank; the U.S. premiere of “Circus,” from the actor Anthony Hopkins’s “1947: Suite for Piano and Orchestra,” featuring the pianist Sergio Tiempo; and the New York premiere of “Mujer Arena,” by the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz.
Dudamel was then joined by the Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, who sang selections from Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical “Company,” including the mile-a-minute number “Getting Married Today,” as well as Billy Strayhorn’s jazz standard “Take the ‘A’ Train.” The famously spirited conductor flew through the numbers with passion, his baton dipping and darting.
Next came a surprise performance of an excerpt from “Disclosure Day,” Spielberg’s science fiction thriller from this year with music by John Williams, before Dudamel closed with “Harlem” by the jazz musician Duke Ellington, soaking in five minutes of applause.
After the concert, as an obliging Dudamel greeted the throngs of well-wishers who surrounded him at dinner, his fillet of beef sitting untouched — there just wasn’t enough of him to go around — he paused to reflect on his next chapter in New York.
“I’m trying to see the city to decide where to go. Testing everything from places to food,” said the conductor, who has been neighborhood-hopping around the Upper West Side and Chelsea as he scouts a permanent place to settle with his wife, the Spanish actress María Valverde, and his 15-year-old son, Martín Dudamel Maturén.
“I’m so happy here,” he added. “Honestly.”
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