We are pleased to announce that The Venezuelan American Endowment for the Arts (VAEA) will present our highest award, The Páez Medal of Art 2018, for his important contribution to the arts to:

Gustavo Dudamel

Gustavo Dudamel photographed by Mark Hanauer

For his significant contribution to the arts and his unwavering commitment in bringing classical music to all, building international bridges and making powerful social transformation through his craft. 

The Páez will be bestowed during VAEA’s Annual Benefit Gala.

About Gustavo Dudamel

Driven by an unwavering belief in the power of music to heal, unite and inspire, Gustavo Dudamel is one of the most distinguished conductors of our day. From the great concert halls to classrooms, video screens and cinemas, Dudamel’s remarkable career of musical achievements and championing of access to the arts for young people around the world is a living example of music’s extraordinary capacity to transform lives.

Dudamel’s 2018/19 season will center around the centennial celebration of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his tenth year as their Music & Artistic Director. Other highlights of the season include his debut at the Metropolitan Opera conducting Verdi’s Otello, tours with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and his first extended academic residency at Princeton University.

Under Dudamel’s direction, the LA Phil has become one of the leading orchestras in the world, admired for its unmatched commitment to new music, diversity and inclusion, and the development of ground-breaking digital initiatives. The celebration of the LA Phil’s 100th season showcases the extraordinary versatility and vision of both the orchestra and Dudamel himself, featuring more than 50 commissions from luminaries such as John Adams, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich, as well as leading young composers such as Julia Adolphe, Ashley Fure, Andrew Norman, Tyshawn Sorey, Kamasi Washington, and Du Yun. Dudamel will lead cross-genre collaborations with Herbie Hancock, MOBY, and Andrew Bird, Beethoven’s five piano concertos with Lang Lang as soloist, a performance at the Academy Awards, a tour of Asia, and more. The LA Phil will also plan to distribute 10,000 free tickets to underserved audiences around Los Angeles as a centennial gift to the community.

A lifelong advocate for music education and social development through art, Dudamel’s own childhood was shaped by his experience with El Sistema, the extraordinary program of immersive musical training initiated in 1975 by José Antonio Abreu. Entering his nineteenth year as Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel carries on the work of his late mentor with his ongoing commitment to El Sistema in Venezuela, and by supporting numerous Sistema-inspired projects around the world, including Big Noise in Scotland, Vienna’s Superar program, SerHacer in Boston, and El Sistema Sweden. His 2018 ‘Americas’ tour with the Vienna Philharmonic was highlighted by an Art and Citizenship workshop in Mexico City bringing together 300 young people from across North and South America in an expression of cultural solidarity.  He has worked to raise awareness for the importance of music education by appearing at the United Nations and the White House, and delivered an address on the unity of the Arts and Sciences at the 2017 Nobel Prize Concert.

Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. He began violin lessons as a child with José Luis Jiménez and Francisco Díaz at the Jacinto Lara Conservatory. He continued his violin studies with Rubén Cova and José Francisco del Castillo at the Latin American Academy of Violin. His conducting studies began in 1993 when he was hired as an Assistant Conductor with the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1996, he studied with Rodolfo Saglimbeni and was named Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1999, he was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and began conducting studies with the orchestra’s founder, Dr. Abreu. Dudamel achieved international attention by winning the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler Competition in 2004. He then went on to become Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony (2007-2012), where he currently holds the title Honorary Conductor. Inspired by Dudamel’s early musical and mentoring experiences, the Gustavo Dudamel Foundation, a registered charity, was created in 2012 with the goal of promoting access to music as a human right and a catalyst for learning, integration, and social change.