Review: Dudamel’s Closing Weekend as LA Phil Music and Artistic Director – symphony.org

Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic, soloists, and the LA Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall, June 5, 2026. Photo by Elizabeth Asher, courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.
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In Tuesday’s (6/9) San Francisco Classical Voice, Richard S. Ginell writes, “ ‘Gustavo, don’t leave us for New York!’ A woman’s anguished cry in Spanish in Walt Disney Concert Hall Thursday night seemed to express what many Angelenos feel, unaware that Gustavo Dudamel isn’t leaving them high and dry. After all, he’s just been adorned with two imposing, if wordy, new titles—Artistic and Cultural Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Founding Director and Conductor Laureate of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles—and is due to be back four weeks out of the year indefinitely, beginning this December…. The programming on his final weekend—the music of John Adams, the Phil’s Creative Chair throughout the Dudamel era, and Antonio Estévez, a hero of Gustavo’s youth in Venezuela—displayed Dudamel’s dual allegiances to Venezuela and Los Angeles … On Thursday, Dudamel devoted nearly an entire evening to having the principal players of his orchestra take solo turns with the backing of their colleagues…. All the soloists acquitted themselves beautifully…. A pair of world premieres [bracketed] the evening: John Williams’s dynamic portrait of Dudamel, Bravo Gustavo! … and Gabriela Ortiz’s quick progression from moonlit nights to roaring indigenous Mexican influences, Mujer Arena. Both composers were present to gather the long ovations.”
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