A New Day at the NY Phil: Gustavo Dudamel Announces the 2025-26 Season at David Geffen Hall
To be frank, I couldn't care less about what the NY Phil is playing in 2026.
For me, yesterday's 2025-26 season announcement at Geffen Hall was about one thing: seeing whether Gustavo Dudamel, who's in town this week to conduct the Philharmonic in Varèse, Ravel and Gershwin, could pass the eye test in front of the media and other interested parties as the Phil's next Music and Artistic Director. Dudamel doesn't take over for two more seasons but, in what's become de rigeur among major orchestras with MD vacancies, he'll do halfsies with the LA Phil next season as "Music Director Designate", leading six weeks of concerts in New York, including opening night.
Before Gustavo took the stage set up in the Geffen Hall lobby, he was introduced by the Phil's freshly minted CEO Matías Tarnopolsky, who took over in January from Deborah Borda. (No doubt she's hoping it sticks this time.) Tarnopolsky, 54, comes to New York from the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he'd been CEO since 2018. An affable Brit who happens to have been born in Argentina, Tarnopolsky and Dudamel have known each other for two decades, back to when Matías was in charge of artistic planning at the NY Phil (2005-09).
"I can take absolutely no credit for the planning of this season," Tarnopolsky charmingly confessed before ticking off some highlights: the world premiere of David Lang's evening-length choral work the wealth of nations; a crowd-sourced orchestration of Frederic Rwzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated; and a new choral work by Ellen Reid, co-commissioned with the LA Phil.
And then, with perhaps a bit too much stagecraft, Dudamel entered from stage left, trailed by one of several cameras there to record the event. (At least they didn't have walk-on music.) After warmly embracing Tarnopolsky, Dudamel shared how prior to that morning's rehearsal, he sat in the Music Director's studio for the first time, surrounded by the portraits of past music directors: Mengleberg, Mahler, Toscanini, Bernstein.
"I'm overwhelmed," he said. "It's a special feeling."