Awards Daily is proud to present this exclusive clip from Greenwich Films’s ¡Viva Maestro!, acclaimed director Ted Braun’s new documentary about Grammy-winner Gustavo Dudamel. Dudamel serves as the music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was featured as March’s Guest Conductor for the New York Philharmonic. The documentary features Dudamel as he embarks on international tours that are disrupted by deadly protests across his native Venezuela. The moving documentary accompanies Dudamel as he responds to unexpected and daunting obstacles with powerful music-making and an innovative and triumphant concert that celebrates the power of art to renew and unite.
According to director Braun, “¡Viva Maestro! began as an exploration of the power and beauty of Gustavo Dudamel’s music making and an affirmation of his belief in the transformative power of art. When we set out we had no idea of the many ways Gustavo himself and those values would be tested. Or how the film would, in a fashion that seems especially attuned to our current moment, explore art and music’s role in a time of geopolitical crisis.
We arrived in Venezuela in February of 2017 for our first shoot – filming Gustavo conducting a series of rehearsals of the Beethoven Symphonies. President Trump had just taken office and, though we had no way of knowing it, Venezuela was six weeks away from erupting in 100 days of violent street protests. A feeling of divisiveness was in the air. A divisiveness that, as it turns out, was to dominate and transform the next several years of life around the world, In this clip Gustavo, with his keen sense of the spirit of the times, speaks to his central beliefs and his drive to find creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems. It’s a scene that offers a glimpse of the core of his character and hints at a central question of the film – what’s the place of art in a time of political crisis? Gustavo’s answer is simple but profound – confronted with forces that seek to divide, art can respond with an assertion of our shared humanity and bring us together.”
¡Viva Maestro! premieres exclusively in theaters on Friday, April 8.
