Gustavo Dudamel

Renowned for his wild expressive energy and passionate belief in the magic of music, Gustavo Dudamel was a student of Venezuela's classical music foundation El Sistema, who rose to become one of the world's leading conductors.

In the 1970s his father came through the programme designed to give opportunities to children from poor social backgrounds, playing trombone in salsa bands before encouraging Gustavo to take up music at just four years of age. He took to it naturally and joined El Sistema taking up the violin at the age of ten. By 15 he was leading the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and being mentored by the legendary Jose Antonio Abreu, before studying in Germany at the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle and making his name when he won the prestigious Mahler Prize in 2004.

He went on to release his first album 'Beethoven Symphonies No. 5 and 7' in 2006 and performed with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony as part of Pope Benedict's 80th birthday celebrations, becoming recognised across the world as a bright, high octane maestro who was injecting new life into the classical scene. In 2009 he was appointed Musical Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but continued making exuberant critically acclaimed recordings for the Deutsche Grammophon label, such as the Latin-inspired 'Fiesta', 'Mahler 7' and 'Brahms: Symphony No. 4', which won him the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance in 2012.

Performing with the world's finest orchestras and riding high on a wave of 'Dudamania', the mop-haired maestro went on to set up the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra and tackled the works of Wagner, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, and in 2015 he conducted the opening and closing music to the movie 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'.