San Francisco Frontiers - Gustavo Dudamel: the superstar conductor building bridges to pop

It was perhaps an unlikely spectacle at Coachella, but one that generated a huge, enthusiastic crowd -- and was befitting of a maestro who has become a bona fide celebrity.

"WERK!" shouted one young audience member at Dudamel, as he and the Los Angeles Philharmonic began what was seen as one of the festival's most memorable performances.

Under Dudamel's direction for the past 17 years, the LA Phil has cultivated an air of cool, fostering a relationship with pop and celebrity especially during the ensemble's summer series at the Hollywood Bowl.

So it was only natural that the 44-year-old take his act to California's Coachella, one of the world's highest-profile music festivals that in recent years has gained a reputation for buzzy surprises and eclectic line-ups.

The orchestra delivered, launching into a mesmerizing set that included classics like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, film themes like John Williams' "Imperial March" from "Star Wars," and a genre-spanning array of guests including country star Maren Morris, Icelandic jazz-pop singer Laufey, LA's own Becky G and EDM DJ Zedd.

The grand finale saw Dudamel's baton conjure bars from one LL Cool J, a genre-blending pas de deux that mirrored a rap battle.

"This place represents a culture," Dudamel said of the festival in a backstage interview with AFP, ahead of his and the Phil's first performance, which they will reprise on Saturday during Coachella's final weekend.

"This is what I believe is the mission of art, this identity," he explained. "The identity of a new generation, hungry for beauty."

- 'Catharsis' -

Over the years, some observers have marveled over -- or criticized -- Dudamel's ties with Hollywood and his efforts to unite the classical world with music of the Hot 100 variety.

But for the conductor -- whose talent was shaped by Venezuela's illustrious "El Sistema" musical education program -- working across genre is "the most natural thing," he said.

In his youth, "my father had a salsa band, and I grew up listening to that and going to the orchestra, and it was always very natural to just enjoy music -- whatever it was, a bolero, a rock band," Dudamel recalled.

"There are different styles of music, but music is one."

Johanna Rees, the vice president of presentations at the LA Phil, one of the most prestigious orchestras in the United States, says cross-genre collaborations are in part about drawing in fresh audience members.

"It could be considered an entry point," she said, "exposing the orchestra to these younger, newer audiences so they can come back and check out more things and discover orchestral concerts on their own."

A lot of audience members at Coachella, she predicted, were "seeing an orchestra for the very first time."

"It's quite awesome, in the most literal sense of that word, to see how everybody can come together and make this music completely without the genre."

Some in the classical music world have balked at this notion, considering it a dilution, or cheapening, of the art form.

But such criticism misses the expansive possibilities ingrained in the process of collaboration, Rees said: "We're not creating orchestral wallpaper behind a band."

"It's hearing the music in a different way. It's not dumbing it down," she added. "It's just making it another version of itself."

The prime sunset slot at Coachella serves as a capstone ushering in Dudamel's final year of his nearly two-decade run in Los Angeles -- the product of "years of dreaming, and breaking walls, and connecting more not only with styles of music but with different people's identities," he said.

It's an ethos the maestro aims to bring to the eminent New York Philharmonic when he officially assumes his post as that company's next director in the 2026-27 season.

And it's vital, he said, in a moment of boiling political turmoil.

"We need these spaces of catharsis," he said, to "connect to the power of a tool of humanity that is music."

R.Moore--SFF