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Simón Bolívar Symphony Youth Orchestra Steals South Korean Hearts
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By Simon Bolivar Symphony Youth Orchestra
MINCI
Saturday, Dec 20, 2008
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The prestigious orchestra, conducted by young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, captivated the audience of Seoul with pieces by Bernstein and Mahler. Venezuela and South Korea will crate a bilateral symphony orchestra.
The concert was every bit as good as a rock concert: women threw themselves into the edge of the stage at the end of the show to receive the jackets of the stars. The thundering ovation could also be heard in a pop concert.
But it wasn’t. Last Sunday, December 14, at the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall, hundreds of Venezuelan musicians were the ones who produced euphoria in the audience during their first performance in South Korea, the second country the orchestra visited during its Asia Tour.
The repertory was the same as in China, but the reaction of the audience was even more emotive: from the very beginning South Koreans loudly applauded when the young conductor Gustavo Dudamel came out with his baton. The musical afternoon started with the piece West Side Story, by Leonard Bernstein, without the usual introduction of the anthems.
The impeccable performance of the musicians produced synergy with the acoustic of the hall during a concert that demonstrated the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra is the peak of the system created by the so-know Venezuelan musician José Antonio Abreu.
The synchronization, rhythm and intensity of the swinging dance performed by Dudamel and the orchestra during the first part of the concert captivated 2,500 people who attended the concert.
When Bernstein’s piece finished, Dudamel was quiet for almost a minute to keep the sudden moment of tension. When he lowered the baton, the audience loudly applauded and smiled.
South Koreans Stood up
The challenge of the evening, however, was the Symphony Nº 1, by Gustav Mahler. When the 15 minutes interval finished, the young conductor jumped, lowered and smiled for two hours to show the peaks of happiness and suffering of the piece.
In the four movements the intensity of the music became so strong that audience’s hair stood on end.
The protocol guys started to ask people to sit down, since they are not familiarized with this kind of reactions during a classical concert. Gustavo came out and in of the stage five times, enough time to introduce the soloists of the piece during the more than 10 minutes of ovation.
The young musicians returned back to their seats and then Bernstein’s Mambo get started with the usual choreographic swinging movement of instruments. The audience didn’t get tired of applauding and asked for another piece. At the concert hall, lights were turned off for a few seconds and when lights returned back the musicians appeared wearing tricolor jackets with the colors of the Venezuelan flag.
Performing Alberto Ginastera’s Malambo
At the end of the concert, the musicians took off their jackets to give it to the audience, just like pop stars would do it in their shows. All of them wanted to keep a souvenir of the concert that meant a landmark in the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall, where the audience stood up to applaud.
Dudamel went down the stage to give his jacket to the South Korean master Sung Kwak.
A world project
At the end of the concert, diplomats from the Venezuelan Embassy to South Korea offered a reception for the audience and musicians of the Venezuelan orchestra to celebrate this first visit.
During his short speech, José Antonio Abreu, creator of Venezuela’s National System of Orchestras, known as El Sistema, proposed to the President of the Sung Nam Arts Center, Jung-Duck Lee, the creation of a bi-national symphony orchestra to strengthen bounds between both nations. The orchestra’s debut would be in South Korea in 2010.
Abreu assured that would be “the first step to found the Venezuelan system in Korea,” which is expected to be started coming soon. “Your group is sowing something we would like to be spread all over the world. I would like to found a project like this here,” he said.
After giving another performance in the Seoul Sung Nam Arts Center, the famous orchestra traveled to Japan to give concerts in Tokyo and Hiroshima.
YVKE Mundial
http://www2.minci.gob.ve/noticiaingles.asp?num=1899
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