“Gustavo Dudamel rides a wave of Dudamania
The Venezuelan, who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic next year, brings youth and experience, exuberance and gravitas, along with an affinity for pop culture.
By Reed Johnson

Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela — The new global poster boy for classical music and his wife are salsa-stepping across the ballroom of the Alba Hotel. Calm, precise and seemingly always sure of their next move, Gustavo Dudamel and Eloisa Maturen grin at each other and the dozens of other couples around them as they execute perfect copas and “spot turns.”

Barely two hours earlier, Dudamel, the 27-year-old conducting prodigy who will take over as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in September, was beaming and waving to a packed auditorium after leading the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra through a thunderous performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. The concert last summer, marking the orchestra’s 30th anniversary, was a rousingly nostalgic occasion, with Dudamel’s elderly artistic mentor, Jose Antonio Abreu, joining his protege on stage amid a fusillade of flashing cellphone cameras, air kisses and lusty cheers”. Fuente original