Gustavo Dudamel takes London by storm

Classical music critics have applauded the first performance of a five-day residency by Venezuela's Simón Bólivar youth orchestra and its wunderkind conductor, 28-year-old Gustavo Dudamel, at London's Royal Festival Hall.
 
The orchestra, whose 180 members have been plucked from impoverished and crime-ridden barrios to play in the world's top concert halls, has been called one of the most remarkable stories in classical music. Their conductor, a product of the same government scheme, is as much of a success story.
 
Dudamel is being hailed as a saviour of classical music. English conductor Sir Simon Rattle has called him "the most astonishingly gifted conductor I've ever come across" while other influential fans include Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim.
 
Last night's concert - which sold out 10 months ago - ended with a standing ovation and an exuberant response from the musicians, who threw their jackets into the audience. The normally sombre Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra had a "delightfully cock jauntiness" while Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony "turned into a showcase for the orchestra's many virtues", said the Daily Telegraph's Paul Gent. The Guardian's classical music crirtic, Tom Service, said: "It was fantastic really, such tremendous energy and you could see the connection between Dudamel and the orchestra."
 
The buzz caused by Dudamel's short London residency is set to be outstripped when he arrives in Los Angeles later this year, as the chief conductor of the LA Philharmonic. According to the Los Angeles Times Dudamel and his wife, the journalist and former dancer Eloisa Maturen, could eclipse David and Victoria Beckham as the city's favourite 'It' couple. ·