Few concerts can claim to generate such tremendous international interest as the New Year’s Concert from Vienna. Under the baton of the world’s leading conductors, the Vienna Philharmonic rings in the New Year with a gala concert from the magnificent setting of the Golden Hall in Vienna’s Musikverein. The event is broadcast to over 90 countries all over the world and watched by more than 50 million viewers. 

The 2017 New Year’s Concert is conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, the youngest ever conductor to lead this event. The 35-year-old is celebrated as the “young blood” (Die Presse, Austria) in the classical scene, and his comet-like ascent to the top tier of conductors has been unique. He has now established himself as one of the leading and most celebrated conductors of his generation. 

Under Dudamel’s baton, performances become exceptional experiences full of energy and passion, with every bar brought to life; he is a conductor with a special place in today’s music scene. Although this performance will mark his debut at the New Year’s Concert, it is not his first concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. Dudamel has been a regular guest conductor of this world-class orchestra in Vienna and on tour. He performed with the orchestra for the first time in 2007, returned in 2010, and enchanted a wide audience at the 2012 Summer Night Concert in Vienna. Most recently, he opened the 2014 season at the Theater an der Wien as well as the traditional Vienna Philharmonic Week in Japan in the same year. 

 
Gustavo Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and started his musical education within the Venezuelan music youth program “El Sistema”.  At the age of 15, he found himself on the podium of the nation’s flagship Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and was appointed Music Director in 1999. During his 18th season as Music Director of the entire El Sistema project, he continues to lead the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, as well as on tour around the globe. 

 
In every aspect of his work, Gustavo Dudamel is driven by a vision of music as a social force. Wherever he goes to conduct, Gustavo Dudamel strives to bring a social element to his work – whether guest-conducting youth orchestras, encouraging socially-motivated music projects, or ensuring that young people from disadvantaged communities have access to his concerts. 

 
At his initiative, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has dramatically expanded the scope of its community outreach programs, including most notably the creation of Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), influenced by the philosophy of Venezuela’s admired El Sistema, which encourages social development through music. With YOLA and diverse local educational initiatives, Dudamel brings music to children in underserved communities of Los Angeles. Now entering his eighth season as Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, his contract has been extended to the end of the 2021–22 season. Dudamel also appears as guest conductor with the world’s most famous musical institutions and, in 2017, he tours Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic. 

The Vienna Philharmonic goes back to 1842, when Otto Nicolai conducted a “Grand Concert” with the members of the imperial court opera. This event is regarded as the origin of the orchestra. Since its founding, the orchestra has been managed by a democratically elected administrative committee and works with artistic, organisational and financial autonomy. In the 20th century, the Vienna Philharmonic had important artistic collaborations with Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwängler and – after 1945 – with honorary members Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. The orchestra has performed approximately 7,000 concerts on all continents since its creation, and has presented Vienna Philharmonic Weeks in New York since 1989 and in Japan since 1993.The tradition of the New Year’s Concert dates back to 1941. The first concert to mark the New Year took place in 1939, but on that occasion it was given on December 31st. Its first conductor was Clemens Krauss, who was followed in 1955 by Willi Boskovsky. Boskovsky conducted the New Year’s Concert no fewer than twenty-five times between then and 1979. The list of conductors who have presided over a New Year’s Concert reads like a Who’s Who of leading maestros. The New Year’s Concert was first televised live in 1959. The Vienna Philharmonic regards the New Year’s Concert as a musical greeting to the world that is offered in a spirit of hope, of friendship and of peace at the start of the New Year. The recordings of the New Year’s Concert are among the most important releases on the classical market. Sony Classical is keen to ensure that the New Year’s Concert is available to a broad, international public. The live recording of the 2017 New Year’s Concert will be available on CD and as a  download (international release on 9 January), as well as on DVD and Blu-ray (27 January), on vinyl (3 March) and as a digital long-form video (17 February).