Photo Credit: Talo Urcera / CC by 2.0
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel is leaving Los Angeles to become the NY Philharmonic’s next Music Director.
Gustavo Dudamel will succeed Jaap van Zweden, beginning in the 2026-2027 season. Dudamel will also hold the title of Music and Artistic Director of the NY Philharmonic for a five-year term, beginning in the 2025-2026 season. Dudamel has served as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Music and Artistic Director since 2009.
“We are thrilled to welcome Gustavo Dudamel as the next Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic,” adds NY Phil Co-Chairmen Peter May and Oscar Tang. “Building on this orchestra’s great legacy, he joins a historic list of distinguished Music Directors. On behalf of the Board of Directors, we are delighted that Gustavo Dudamel has said yes to leading our artistic future.”
“Today, above all, I am grateful. I am grateful to the musicians and leadership of the New York Philharmonic as we embark upon this new and beautiful journey together; to my beloved family at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and YOLA for helping me to learn and grow through countless challenges and triumphs,” adds Gustavo Dudamel. “And to my Maestro Abreu and the musicians of Venezuela who have been there with me since the beginning.”
“As the great poet Federico Garcia Lorca said, ‘Every step we take on earth brings us to a new world.’ I gaze with joy and excitement at a world that lies before me in New York City, and with pride and love at the world I have shared–and will continue to share–with my dear Angelenos over the next three seasons and beyond,” Dudamel continues. “All of us are united in our belief that culture creates a better world and in our dream that music is a fundamental right. I look forward to the work ahead.”
Gustavo Dudamel made his New York Philharmonic debut in November 2007, conducting works by Dvořák and Prokofiev as well as the Orchestra’s first performances of Chávez’s Sinfonia India (Symphony No. 2) since Bernstein led the piece in 1961.
To date he has conducted the NY Phil in 26 concerts, in repertoire ranging from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in 2009 to Gabriela Ortiz’s Clara and Andreia Pinto Correia’s Os pássaros da noite, works by composers he selected for NY Phil commissions complementing the Robert Schumann symphonic cycle he conducted in March 2022.