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CARACAS — Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman is performing with Venezuela's top young musicians and says he is impressed by their spirit and intensity.
Perlman said Wednesday that he was moved by the experience of playing with Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and his Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony Orchestra during their first of two concerts in Caracas this week.
"What's absolutely fantastic is the intensity of the musical involvement of all the young people in the orchestra," Perlman said. "It's a pleasure for me to look at them and see how they're involved in what they're doing."
The excitement, he said, is "unavoidable" when performing with Dudamel, the 28-year-old who debuts in October as musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Dudamel's fame in the classical music world has also drawn increasing attention to the network of orchestras he came from: the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela.
"The System," as it's known here, was founded in 1975 by economist, musician and former congressman Jose Antonio Abreu, who believed all children should have access to a quality musical education.
Since then, it has grown to include 150 youth orchestras and 70 children's orchestras — more than 250,000 students across the nation — and has been a model for similar programs in countries from Brazil to Britain.
Later this month, Dudamel will conduct Venezuela's youth orchestra along with cellist Yo-Yo Ma in Caracas.
Dudamel also said he liked a recent suggestion from Peruvian opera tenor Juan Diego Florez that they hold a joint concert in Peru's ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, calling it a "wonderful idea." Dudamel said such performances can help in "spreading the message of the System."
Maricmar Perez, a 23-year-old cellist in the Simon Bolivar orchestra, said after a Tuesday rehearsal that she would never have had such an opportunity if Venezuela's network of orchestras hadn't provided her with instruction and an instrument starting at age 7.
"Imagine the honor that the orchestra feels — the privilege — to play with a violinist of Perlman's stature," Perez said.
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