Dudamel Quotes & Sayings

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community. — Gustavo Dudamel

A friend gave me a CD of the 'Pathetique' Symphony as a Christmas present. I went home, and I put on the CD expecting to listen to Tchaikovsky. But it started 'ta ta ta taaa.' It was too long for me. I didn't understand it at first, but then I fell in love, in love, in love. — Gustavo Dudamel

Music is a fundamental human right — Gustavo Dudamel

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy. — Gustavo Dudamel

Los Angeles is a very special city. It's a great ethnic mix, a great cultural mix. — Gustavo Dudamel

When people feel that something really special is happening on the stage, things change. — Gustavo Dudamel

It's a small city where I have a lot of time to think. The orchestra and I have had a chance to connect very well in this time. I think of all the millions of people in Los Angles. There aren't that many millions of people in all of Sweden. — Gustavo Dudamel

My relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra brought me many times to London and I will always reflect positively on that early period of development with them - their patience, their warmth, their dedication. — Gustavo Dudamel

The challenge is not so much to change the sound. The challenge is to connect and to create something special. — Gustavo Dudamel

I love to travel, but sometimes it's nice to stay in one place. — Gustavo Dudamel

For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there - my wife, my parents and my musical family. — Gustavo Dudamel

It's a physical challenge. It's a spiritual challenge. I'm studying almost every day a different symphony, not returning to any one for a week. — Gustavo Dudamel

In my imagination yes, I remember, when I was six years old, I was conducting all this concert in my house. But now it's real. — Gustavo Dudamel

My main goal, and it's a big one, is that every child has a chance to get close to music - as a right - that as they have access to food, health, and education, they get the chance to have art and culture - especially music. — Gustavo Dudamel

When you play Mozart, it's so clean, it's so simple. It's the body naked. — Gustavo Dudamel

We have to go and show these people what classical music is. We say sometimes that classical music has a small audience, but it's because people don't have the chance to be closer to it. — Gustavo Dudamel

I think the atmosphere of a Prom concert can change your life, in the best way. It's so deep, the feeling you have there. The audience is so close, and there are so many of them, that you feel they are almost embracing you. — Gustavo Dudamel

Classical music in Venezuela is now something like a pop concert. You can see people screaming or crying because they don't have a ticket. — Gustavo Dudamel

I studied music since I was four years old, and from that moment I became part of a family. And that family has taught me things; not only musical things, but things I have to face in life, and that is where the success of the system lies — Gustavo Dudamel

I wanted to play my violin and have my musical expression through the instrument. But then I was really young when I had my first opportunity to conduct. — Gustavo Dudamel

I love Gustavo Dudamel and I love what he does for classical music, and I love what he comes out of, El Sistema and the old man Abreu. When we were in Venezuela, I had the chance to go to his building. He had, like, five or six orchestras playing of kids from the hood playing, like, Mahler's third symphony and Shostakovich fifth and Beethoven. Man, it's unbelievable. I mean, they could play. — Wynton Marsalis

For me to rehearse with a children's orchestra a Mahler symphony was to really work. We had three or four weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, every day eight or nine hours, putting the First together. I had been conducting Tchaikovsky a lot and Beethoven, but Mahler was different. — Gustavo Dudamel

I have eaten very well in Los Angeles. Marvelously! — Gustavo Dudamel

Recently, I went to a disco with friends, and all the young people were saying, 'Dudamel, we want to go to your concert, but it's impossible because it's sold out.' It's really amazing. — Gustavo Dudamel

I think that I need to learn a lot, a lot. — Gustavo Dudamel

People say that having three orchestras is a crazy life, but it's better because you have three families. I want to have my own kids very soon. In future, I still want to conduct a lot, but less, to be with my family. — Gustavo Dudamel

Of course, we also have to play in concert halls. This is our dream when you are a musician - to play in a good, comfortable hall with a wonderful acoustic. — Gustavo Dudamel

You learn a lot about each other from a tour, musically and humanly. — Gustavo Dudamel

I want to work with the big orchestras. I want to have a big family. — Gustavo Dudamel

I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler. — Gustavo Dudamel

Going to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!' — Gustavo Dudamel

You have to believe that things will happen, you have to work and love what you're doing. — Gustavo Dudamel

My material life is simple. — Gustavo Dudamel

It's not that people don't like classical music. It's that they don't have the chance to understand and to experience it. — Gustavo Dudamel

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music. — Gustavo Dudamel

I live day by day. — Gustavo Dudamel

I set out to create a means whereby music could be a way of vindicating the rights of the masses. — Gustavo Dudamel