Gustavo Dudamel, 43, has gone on to become a conducting superstar with crossover into movies and pop music and has led the Los Angeles Philharmonic—already respected under previous music director Esa Pekka-Salonen—to greater heights.

“The ascendancy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic is the salient event in American orchestral life of the past 25 years,” wrote Alex Ross, the influential music critic for the New Yorker, in 2017.

In February 2023, in what was seen a huge coup for the orchestra, the New York Philharmonic appointed him as its next music director, a position that—notably—Bernstein held from 1958 through 1969. He begins his duties in 2026. “What I see is an amazing orchestra in New York and a lot of potential for developing something important,” he told the New York Times at the time. “It’s like opening a new door and building a new house. It’s a beautiful time.”

In his addition to his skills as podium leader, Dudamel might be best known as an educator, and it is in both those capacities that he will be seen August 6 when he brings the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela to the Ravinia Festival. Typical of the maestro’s diverse programming with his constant emphasis on the now, the program will consist of John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine along with Antonio Estévez’s Mediodía en el Llano, Alberto Ginastera’s suite of four orchestral dances from Estancia, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.