Advancing Social Justice
through Creativity
The Dudamel Foundation believes that people of all economic and social backgrounds should have access to art and beauty, which is why we strive to provide more young people with opportunities to discover music on their own terms.
“Fidelio is perhaps Beethoven’s purest expression of our ability to overcome adversity, and to reach one another across a seemingly insurmountable divide. That belief in the transformative, transcendent power of music is at the heart of this production, in order to offer a performance with equal resonance to both Deaf and hearing audiences, and remind us that there is always light through the darkness.”
Beethoven: Fidelio
Throughout his musical upbringing in Venezuela, Gustavo rehearsed and led the White Hands Choir in various programs through El Sistema, notably conducting their first-ever symphonic concert. In 2020, he envisioned a new production of Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, to mark the composer’s 250th anniversary of his birth, which explores his identity as a deaf artist.
El Coro de Manos Blancas and Michael Anthony Spady on stage in Fidelio, Los Angeles, CA, April 2022. Photo by APU GOMES.
White Hands Choir
The White Hands Choir (Coro de Manos Blancas) is the leading group of the Special Education Program of the National System of Orchestras and Youth and Children's Choirs of Venezuela (El Sistema). This program was created in 1995 with the main objective of integrating children, youth and adults with functional diversity or physical and cognitive disabilities into daily life and artistic activities, using music as a tool for development and inclusion.
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