Maybe it was the moment between pieces on Wednesday night when some 200 young musicians onstage simultaneously ditched their formal wear and donned bright yellow-red-and-blue jackets, transforming Symphony Hall into a riot of color. Or maybe it was when, after a triumphant night of playing, they joyously raised their instruments into the air as a full house stood for yet another ovation. Or more likely, it was from the first real climax of the opening piece, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, when a wiry young conductor flicked his wrist and unleashed a massive surge of orchestral electricity. That's when it became obvious that this was not a typical concert in Symphony Hall. This was the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, with its shaggy-haired, newly-minted-celebrity maestro Gustavo Dudamel.
In case you haven't heard, this youth orchestra and this conductor are the most buzzed-about pair in classical music today. And for once, it's not the kind of buzz driven by glossy promotion or some scandalous album cover. The genuine excitement behind the SBYO and Dudamel is driven by two things: first, the astonishing energy and sheer exhilaration of their music-making, and second, the inspiring national program in Venezuela referred to simply as El Sistema, which has given instruments to poor kids across the country and placed them in a network of orchestras starting in preschool. About 250,000 kids are participating; 75 percent live below the poverty line.
The SBYO is the top orchestra of El Sistema, and its playing is something that has to be experienced live to fully grasp (the group's two CDs on Deutsche Grammophon don't quite cut it). That applies as well to Dudamel, who at the tender age of 26 was recently named the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Viewed in person, his conducting has a searing intensity when called for but also a fantastic dexterity that allows him to keep this huge orchestra's many gears on track with more success than anyone could expect. Nor did he seem to be conducting for the audience's benefit, which can always be a concern with a conductor this physically gifted. Every gesture was organic to the music at hand.
But it's not right to single out the conductor alone here; this orchestra plays with a spirit that is heard all too rarely, if ever, in the professional music world. Whatever passion a conductor might project from the podium can often dissipate after the first few stands of strings. With the SBYO, the vitality lofts in from the back of the sections and rises up from the floorboards (one violinist kept levitating out of his chair). The playing had a blazing heat at key moments in the Bartok and in the finale of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, but also remarkable clarity.
Sometimes when young musicians tear into the music they love, there is a certain scrappy quality that creeps in. Little of that here. One could quibble about a few tempo choices in the Beethoven or the pacing of certain transitions in the Bartok, but the bigger picture was so persuasive, nit-picking seems beside the point.
After intermission came a rhythmically charged traversal of Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story," and then the group really let loose in three encores: a reprise of Bernstein's "Mambo" and works by Arturo Marquez and Alberto Ginastera. In the middle of playing, they started spinning their cellos and basses, twirling their trumpets and violins, dancing and even trying out a Fenway-style wave. Ovations followed every single piece. It was also notable that Dudamel did not take a single bow from the podium but received the applause from within his group.
Another catalyst of spontaneous ovations was José Antonio Abreu, the visionary 68-year-old Venezuelan who founded El Sistema and who preaches a gospel of "spiritual affluence." The crowd rose at one point at the mere mention of his name. He deserves it many times over, and the empirical success of his work in Venezuela is having ripple effects that could potentially shift the prism on arts education in this country.
New England Conservatory, which presented the concert with help from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.
