Season finale at the Waldbühne with Gustavo Dudamel

Just as he did at his debut 17 years ago, Gustavo Dudamel will be presenting a programme of South American music with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Waldbühne, bringing the 2024/25 season to a close. It features works by Gabriela Ortiz and Arturo Márquez who hail from Mexico, and also by Dudamel’s Venezuelan compatriot Evencio Castellanos and Puerto Rican-born Roberto Sierra. The island state of Puerto Rico lies between South and North America and is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Sierra’s short 1996 composition, Alegría, which is dominated by catchy rhythms, forms a geographical bridge to the North American pieces in the concert. The combination with the dances from West Side Story is rich in connections, as in his musical, Leonard Bernstein retells Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a conflict between American and Puerto Rican street gangs.

Ortiz, Márquez, Sierra and Copland studied in Europe and were also involved in the development of an independent musical language in their home regions. The piece Kauyumari, for example, in which Ortiz transforms the orchestra into what one critic described as a “seething sound machine”, refers to an indigenous legend, while Copland, in his Old American Songs, set out in search of the origins of genuinely American music.

One discovery is the final composition by Duke Ellington, in which he places two biblical kings at the side of Martin Luther King in his ballet music, Three black kings. A life-affirming, folk-like violin theme in the last part of the piece pays homage to the civil rights activist, who was murdered in 1968. The works presented here by Dudamel, Ryan Speedo Green and the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Waldbühne combine memories of the difficult legacy of colonialism with an optimistic joie de vivre, expressed through captivating rhythms and melodies.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Gustavo Dudamel

Ryan Speedo Green