Wearing bright white sneakers and carrying a New York Philharmonic tote bag, Gustavo Dudamel stepped out of a black S.U.V. at Lincoln Center on Labor Day morning and headed for the stage door of David Geffen Hall. This was his first day on the job, no matter that he seemed to be all over New York this past year.
“Here we are,” he said as he walked through the open door, passing musicians arriving for rehearsal. “Let’s go.” Dudamel, the new music and artistic director of the Philharmonic, took an elevator upstairs to inspect his new office, before heading for a day of stop-and-start-and-stop rehearsals of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.
Less than a month ago, Dudamel was at the center of four consecutive nights of farewell celebrations at the Hollywood Bowl that captured the musical influences that shaped his 17 years leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic: classical, but also Latin, rock, pop and movie scores. He performed with the bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green (opening night) and the founder of Coldplay, Chris Martin (closing night). There were appearances by Los Tigres del Norte, Foo Fighters, Natalia Lafourcade and Beck. One night, nearly the entire concert was sung and spoken in Spanish.
And yes, there were fireworks.
On that deserted Labor Day morning, Dudamel began a no less elaborate arrival on the East Coast. He will lead 14 concerts in three halls over the next three weeks before taking the orchestra on its first European tour in a decade. It is a meticulously choreographed arrival in its programming (more than 30 musical works, including three world premieres) and in its choice of guest performers (a roster that includes Yo-Yo Ma, St. Vincent and Aaron Tveit). And it signals that Dudamel is moving swiftly to put his imprint on the New York Philharmonic and classical music in general.
“This is not a job — it is a mission,” Dudamel said during an interview at his office. “It’s important to open up the doors and begin to connect with people. I know sometimes people panic: Where is Brahms? What is all of this?”
“But look, I’m starting this as a journey,” he continued. “We will have the chance to develop the core repertoire, which is crucial, but also be flexible and open to do these wonderful things with great artists from other fields from other styles. For me, this has not been something uncomfortable. Never.”
Still, for all the interest that has greeted his arrival — it is hard to walk down the street in Midtown without seeing his face on a poster — Dudamel, 45, faces challenges in the city that he didn’t in Los Angeles. With its exacting audiences and critics and its deep bench of artistic institutions, New York is a tougher musical environment. He will compete for patrons and attention, be it with Carnegie Hall or across Lincoln Center’s plaza at the Metropolitan Opera. And he is taking over the Philharmonic at a time when interest in classical music is waning in the city and across the country.
“It’s hard to impress the New York culture community because people think they’ve seen and heard everything,” said Darren Walker, the former head of the Ford Foundation who was also once a member of Lincoln Center’s board of directors. “New York certainly has the most vibrant cultural landscape in America and possibly the world. That is the context he’s coming in to.”
“Having said that, Gustavo Dudamel is a rare treasure: He’s a unicorn,” added Walker, who lives in New York and Los Angeles. “Not since Bernstein has there been so much excitement and anticipation for a season at the Philharmonic.”
It has been a long time since any cultural figure arrived in New York on such a wave of attention and high expectations. No matter how he expands the idea of what a modern orchestra can be, classical music fans are looking to Dudamel to rejuvenate a style of music that was once so ingrained in society that it was regularly featured on Bugs Bunny cartoons and “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It is now often dismissed as elite or dusty.
“This whole mantle is coming down on his shoulders,” Alec Baldwin, the actor who hosts “The New York Philharmonic This Week” on WQXR, said in an interview. “The Dudamel who is arriving here knows how important this is. He knows what people are expecting. He knows what’s riding on this.”
Dudamel already seems to have caught the attention of the ticket-buying public. When he took the orchestra to play with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at the United Palace theater in May, nearly two-thirds of the audience were first-time Philharmonic ticket buyers. Ticket revenues for this season have jumped 8 percent compared with this time last year; and subscription sales have topped $12 million, a record.
“It’s not just the arrival of a new music director — it’s the extraordinary new music, the new hall,” said Matías Tarnopolsky, the president of the Philharmonic, referring to the renovated Geffen Hall. “It is a new world compared to what we had before.”
In Los Angeles, Dudamel proved he was comfortable moving through different social and professional circles, from composers to celebrities to politicians to wealthy donors. He counts among his friends the composer John Adams, whose “On the Transmigration of Souls” will be performed by Dudamel at Geffen Hall this month; and John Williams, the composer behind “Star Wars,” who was honored at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this year. Dudamel regularly stands with some of the biggest names in pop and movies: Tonight at Radio City Music Hall, he will appear with the singer and rapper Lizzo at an event hosted by the actor Liev Schreiber.
Recently, Dudamel went to London to record an album of classical music written by Anthony Hopkins, the 88-year-old actor, with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Hopkins, who said he was connected to Dudamel through their mutual friend Bradley Cooper, said that Dudamel was eager to help and offered suggestions on ways to improve the piece as they headed into the studio.
“He suggested to me, Let’s slow down the piece,” he said. “To bring out the full melody. He throws his body and soul in it. He’s a lovely man.”
In Los Angeles, Dudamel was credited with taking an acclaimed orchestra and broadening its appeal in a city that, like New York, was undergoing demographic churn. In one sign of this, Latinos made up a vast majority of the audience on the second night at the Bowl.
To that end, Dudamel said he was intent on ending the lingering perception of the classical arts as elitist. He described watching a video of the conductor Bruno Walter from the 1960s, in which he disparaged jazz and 12-tone music. Dudamel argued that it suggested a kind of intellectualism that alienated potential new audiences.
At this first day of rehearsal, Dudamel walked onstage to cheers from players, who had met him with hugs in hallways and the elevator. “I think we are going to have an amazing journey,” he said on the podium. “I’m so excited and so privileged. Let’s start the rehearsal.”
He raised his baton and set off on Mahler’s Fifth, one of Dudamel’s favorite works: For the next hour, he sang, spoke in English and German, recited Mahler history and music theory, and tried to coax the players into performing the music the way he envisioned it.
“To be honest,” he said at one point, smiling, “we are beautiful, but we are not together.” He lifted his baton and had them try it again.
By the first break, Dudamel’s T-shirt was stained with sweat. As he stood in the wings, the players walking past him, he glanced down at his shirt and announced he would change into another one.
Deborah Borda, who has served as chief executive for the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and recruited Dudamel to come to New York, said, “One of the great pleasures in my life has been to see his development, to see him become such a leader.” She added that life would be different for him now: “New York is the center of the world in so many ways, so everything you say is judged and very visible.”
Dudamel faces adjustments in a city defined by its intensity and competitiveness, and filled with big personalities — in the arts and in politics — competing for attention. When he was in Los Angeles, he counted among his friends mayors, including Antonio Villaraigosa, who often attended performances; and Eric Garcetti, who once joined him onstage at a concert to play piano at Walt Disney Concert Hall with Moby.
By contrast, Dudamel, in response to a question, said he had yet to hear from Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, and another millennial who has burst on to the New York scene this year.
Still, Dudamel said he viewed New York as different, rather than difficult.
“This is the capital of the world in many senses,” he said. “We have here thousands of possibilities. There are thousands of things — thousands of goals — we can achieve, but we have to be very flexible, very open, to create this story. To evolve the tradition. Not to go back.”
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