Gustavo Dudamel Opens His Hollywood Bowl Farewell With Beethoven’s Ninth

LOS ANGELES — Gustavo Dudamel begins a defining Hollywood Bowl farewell on Thursday night with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, opening a late-summer celebration of the conductor’s 17 years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The Aug. 20 concert pairs the orchestra with musicians from Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and a quartet of vocal soloists. The program makes the evening more than a retrospective: it puts the education initiative Dudamel helped champion on the same stage as one of classical music’s most recognizable works.

Beethoven’s Ninth is famous for the choral finale commonly known as the “Ode to Joy.” At the Bowl, its message of shared humanity also reflects the public-facing identity Dudamel cultivated in Los Angeles, where ambitious symphonic programming and youth music education frequently occupied the same conversation.

The performance starts at 8 p.m. and is part of a broader run honoring Dudamel at the Bowl. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has framed the series as a celebration of his tenure rather than a single goodbye, giving audiences several chances to revisit the scale and energy that defined his years in the city.

Dudamel’s departure marks a significant transition for the orchestra and for Los Angeles culture. His tenure expanded the Philharmonic’s international visibility while keeping local projects such as YOLA central to its mission.

He is scheduled to take up the music and artistic directorship of the New York Philharmonic in the 2026–27 season. Before that move is complete, the Bowl concerts offer Los Angeles a final summer portrait of the partnership: a celebrated conductor, a major civic orchestra and young musicians sharing one of the city’s most recognizable stages.

The Bowl setting gives the farewell unusual civic scale. It is one of Los Angeles’ most recognizable gathering places, and Beethoven’s Ninth allows the event to move between intimate reflection and a massed choral finale designed for a large public audience.

YOLA’s participation is more than ceremonial. The initiative represents the education work that Dudamel repeatedly placed beside the orchestra’s concert ambitions, making young musicians part of the institution’s public identity instead of treating outreach as a separate activity.

Dudamel is scheduled to become music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic in the 2026–27 season. For Los Angeles, the transition raises a long-term question: how the LA Phil will preserve the momentum, experimentation and community focus associated with his tenure while building its next artistic chapter.