Arts & Events

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his wife, actress and director Maria Valverde, created the Encuentros Orchestra as a way to explore and promote cultural unity by bringing together outstanding young musicians ages 18-26 from many different countries. This year,

Dudamel and Valverde brought more than 100 young musicians from 22 countries to California for an intensive two-week program of master classes, rehearsals, cultural activities and concerts in conjunction with Los Angeles Philharmonic and Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA). On Thursday evening August 4, Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Encuentros Orchestra with special guest artist esperanza spalding in a concert at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre under the aegis of Cal Performances. 

This concert led off with a work composed by Venezuelan trumpeter Giancarlo Castro D’Addona that was commissioned by Los Angeles Philharmonic and was dedicated to the Encuentros Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel. D’Addona is one of the most acclaimed artists to emerge from Venezuela’s youth training program El Sistema, in which Dudamel himself received his musical training. D’Addona’s Encuentro Obertura Festiva, is a lively work with festive fanfares from the trumpets and a general feel reminiscent of big band Latin jazz. There was also a lovely brief cello solo exquisitely played by principal cellist Siul Alberto Angel Prado from Venezuela. This piece also paid homage to the musical heritage of the diverse members of Encuentros Orchestra. 

Next on the program was Gaia, a work by Wayne Shorter featuring esperanza spalding on double bass and vocals. Gaia was composed by Wayne Shorter in 2013 at the age of 82. Having collaborated with Shorter on his opera Iphegenia, which received its West Coast premiere here at Zellerbach Hall in February of this year, esperanza spalding is uniquely qualified as an interpreter of Wayne Shorter’s innovative music. In Gaia spalding’s work on double bass was inspiring, and her vocals were full of agility featuring extreme vocal leaps. It is regretted, however, that supertitles were not provided that would have enabled the audience to understand the verbal text that spalding sang so expressively. Perhaps the late addition of Gaia on this concert’s program simply did not give Cal Performances time to prepare supertitles. In any case, esperanze spalding was expertly joined by a small jazz combo consisting of Matthew Stevens on guitar, Eric Doob on drums, and Darrell Grant on piano, as well as by the Encuentros Orchestra. All told, Wayne Shorter’s Gaia was an inspiring work combining elements of jazz and classical music. 

After intermission, Gustavo Dudamel led Encuentros Orchestra in Antonin Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World. This work was written during Dvorák’s yearlong stay in America in 1893. During his time here Dvorák immersed himself in African American spirituals and native American dances, though he later vehemently rebuffed assertions that he cribbed music from these sources, maintaining instead that he wrote his own material in the spirit of these American melodies and rhythms. This symphony opens with violas and low strings punctuated by a horn call. This syncopated theme is then carried over by the woodwinds. A transitional subject in flutes and oboes leads to the second main theme, introduced by the flute and picked up by the violins. This second theme bears some resemblance to the Negro spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” 

The second movement, a beautiful Largo, is one of the most celebrated in all symphonic music. The principal theme, the so-called “Goin’ Home” melody, is first played by a single English horn. Two subsidiary themes are introduced, the first in the flute and oboe and the second in the oboe alone. The third movement, a Scherzo marked Molto vivace, opens with a forceful theme in flute and oboe then answered by the clarinet and punctuated by strings, timpani and triangle. The highly spirited dancelike music of this movement may have been inspired by Dvorák’s hearing of traditional indigenous American ritual dances. This symphony’s final movement, marked Allegro con fuoco, features a jubilant theme first presented by horns and trumpets against sharp chords from the strings. This famous theme recurs at various moments in this symphony’s finale and leaves the audience humming it as a memorable curtain-closer. To tumultuous applause, conductor Gustavao Dudamel acknowledged each of the Encuentros Orchestra’s soloists in turn, striding deep into the orchestra to embrace these excellent musicians individually. It was a fitting conclusion to a very inspiring concert of collective music-making.