NEW YORK CITY / TORONTO (August 5, 2024) — The Glenn Gould Foundation proudly presented the 14th Glenn Gould Prize to Maestro Gustavo Dudamel during a special ceremony at Carnegie Hall on August 2, 2024. This prestigious event also saw the awarding of a shared Glenn Gould Protégé Prize to Andrés David Ascanio Abreu and Enluis Montes Olivar. The presentation, coinciding with Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week (WOW!), highlighted Dudamel’s extraordinary contributions to music, his dedication to nurturing young musicians and his commitment to promoting the benefits of music education worldwide.
Awarded biennially, The Glenn Gould Prize celebrates the exceptional achievements of each Laureate, reflecting the unique and innovative spirit of Glenn Gould himself. Maestro Dudamel is the first Laureate to be awarded the Glenn Gould Protégé Prize, having been selected by his mentor and Glenn Gould Prize Laureate Dr. José Antonio Abreu in 2009.
Previous Laureates include Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Leonard Cohen, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Alanis Obomsawin, Philip Glass, Robert Lepage, and Oscar Peterson. Selected by the Laureate themselves, the Glenn Gould Protégé Prize is a tribute to the vital power of mentorship in the arts and awarded to an outstanding young artist demonstrating exceptional promise with a cash award of CDN$25,000. This year, Maestro Dudamel selected two exceptional young artists to share the Protégé Prize.
The Canadian Consul General to New York, the Hon. Tom Clark, and Glenn Gould Foundation Executive Director Brian Levine, presented the awards onstage at Carnegie Hall during a concert in which Maestro Dudamel conducted the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in an exceptional performance providing a poignant moment reflective of his trajectory from a youngster in the renowned El Sistema system to the top of the classical music world. Maestro Dudamel is currently Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and is the incoming Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic (in 2026).
The event underscored Dudamel’s enduring commitment to the transformative power of music education, one of the many reasons for this selection as the 14th Glenn Gould Prize Laureate.
Introducing Dudamel to the sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall, Brian Levine, CEO, The Glenn Gould Foundation said,” He is a musician of singular passion and charisma with the power to communicate the classics of the past and the musical creations of today with equal vitality and freshness. Aside from his commitment to bringing symphonic music to a wider audience globally, our Laureate is renowned for his deep social conscience, his dedication to the ideals instilled in him by his Maestro, Dr. Abreu, and his inspired work to enshrine music and music education as a human right for every young person. He is the first Glenn Gould Protégé to go on to be chosen as a Laureate in his own right, and I know that he will soon become an irreplaceable jewel in the crown of New York’s musical life, as he already is to the world.”
After introducing his hand-
Gesturing to the 170 musicians, aged 10-17 years old on the Carnegie Hall stage, Dudamel continued, “This is the Venezuela we want. These are the values that we have learned in El Sistema. El Sistema is a program that has been in the life of my country for 50 years, and has given the values of love, of community, of harmony and of peace.
“I want to dedicate this prize to the children and the youth of my beloved country Venezuela.”
Nominees for The Glenn Gould Prize are submitted through an open, public nomination process and can come from a broad range of artistic fields, including musical creation or performance, film, video, television, radio, recordings and other electronic media, theatre,
dance/choreography, writing, technology/innovation, architecture, and design. An international jury comprised of outstanding artists and professionals from diverse disciplines convenes in Toronto, Canada to review the nominees and select the Laureate. The Glenn Gould Prize Laureate is awarded a cash prize of CDN$100,000.
About the Glenn Gould Protégé Prize Winners
Andrés David Ascanio Abreu is a celebrated Venezuelan conductor and trumpeter. As Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, he led the ensemble in a notable performance in Vienna in 2018. He has served as Assistant Conductor to Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and has been a guest conductor for multiple youth orchestras and festivals. Ascanio Abreu directed the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble during their Greece Tour and conducted the Guinness World Record-setting largest orchestra in 2021. He is currently the Musical Academic Director of El Sistema and Associate Conductor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra.
Dynamic 27-year-old Venezuelan conductor Enluis Montes Olivar is garnering international acclaim. As the Associate Conductor of the Simón Bolívar Chamber Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of the Schwob Philharmonic, he recently won 1st Prize and the Orchestra Prize at the 2nd International Conducting Competition of University of Almería. Montes Olivar has debuted with the San Francisco Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and New West Symphony. He previously served as a Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, leading performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, where he was praised for his “virtuosic splendor.”
About The Glenn Gould Foundation:
The Glenn Gould Foundation, established in 1983, is a registered Canadian charitable organization dedicated to celebrating excellence in the arts and promoting cultural enrichment globally. As a beacon of excellence across multiple arts disciplines, The Glenn Gould Foundation continues to draw upon the legacy of Glenn Gould to envision a more enlightened world, dedicated to fostering cultural understanding, expressing our shared humanity through the arts and inspiring creativity worldwide.
Through tentpole initiatives such as The Glenn Gould Prize and Instrumental: Music and Mental Health, in addition to myriad programs, presentations, collaborations and co-presentations with arts organizations, artists and scholars worldwide, the Foundation honours the legacy of the iconic Canadian pianist, thinker, broadcaster, and recording artist Glenn Gould’s legacy through cultural diplomacy.
The Foundation awards its esteemed $100,000 Glenn Gould Prize biennially to an individual in any creative discipline who has enriched the human condition through the arts.
Tune into the Gould Standard podcast, follow our social channels @glenngouldfoundation or visit our website www.glenngould.ca for more information.
