Gustavo Dudamel (42) becomes the 27th chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The New York top orchestra announced this on Tuesday. He will succeed the current chef Jaap van Zweden from season 2026-27.
With Dudamel’s signature, the New York search for a new chef since Jaap van Zweden announced his retirement in 2021 ends. Van Zweden is now conducting his sixth and final season. No other conductor was chief in New York for such a short time. In the intervening season, Dudamel is music director designate. According to The New York Times his appointment was also a secret for the musicians until last night. After a rehearsal they would have been surprised with an announcement that would have been received with loud applause.
Also read a review by Dudamel and the Concertgebouw Orchestra: ‘Dudamel celebrates Mahler’s great imagination’
Dudamel first conducted the New York Philharmonic in 2007, at the age of 26. “It is with pleasure and excitement that I behold the world before me in New York City,” says Dudamel of his new job. He is the first new chef in the recently extensively renovated David Geffen Hall. Van Zweden played a major role in that renovation.
Dudamel trades in his current directorship at the Los Angeles Philharmonic for it. It is no coincidence that this is the same transition that the current director of the New York orchestra, Deborah Borda, made in 2017. She also sealed Dudamel’s leadership in Los Angeles in 2007. Dudamel is also principal of the Paris Opera and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, his native country.
Jaap van Zweden will become chief of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in South Korea next year.
Also read an interview with Jaap van Zweden: ‘Corona has changed me enormously’