Santiago de Chile, June 2018  Gustavo Dudamel

When I received Gustavo´s invitation to fly halfway across the world to Santiago de Chile for four days to take part in his hommage concert for his beloved mentor, Maestro José Antonio Abreu, I didn´t hesitate for a second. It was an honour to have been asked and the long flight over and the jet lag were totally worth it – I wouldn´t have missed this concert for the world!

Gustavo had assembled a fine orchestra for this event – a global music community really came together the celebrate the life and legacy of Maestro Abreu and his vision for music and youth development. Maestro Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, would have loved everything about this concert – seasoned professionals from Gustavo´s “musical family” (Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, LA Philharmonic and Gothenburg Symphony) playing along side the National Youth Orchestra of Chile (FOJI) and 20 musicians from the Simon Bolivar Orchestra from Venezuela. The atmosphere was electric from the first moment on and I loved working with the young musicians.

I was very happy and honoured to be able to film this episode of Sarah´s Music about the event. It was really hard to pack all the joy and inspiration of these four days into 12 minutes but I hope you get a feeling from this how special this event was.

Thanks to Gustavo´s wonderful team from the Gustavo Dudamel Foundation for all their support and help and for setting up this wonderful event. Rest in peace, Maestro Abreu, you will never be forgotten.