Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.
Gustavo DudamelGoing to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!
Gustavo DudamelThe challenge is not so much to change the sound. The challenge is to connect and to create something special.
Gustavo DudamelFor me to rehearse with a children's orchestra a Mahler symphony was to really work. We had three or four weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, every day eight or nine hours, putting the First together. I had been conducting Tchaikovsky a lot and Beethoven, but Mahler was different.
Gustavo Dudamel