A conductor with cojones

Prissy doesn't begin to describe the state of so-called serious classical music in the United States, which is why the audiences are graying or gone. As in dead.

Now along comes Gustavo Dudamel, who's been shaking things up for the past year at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and judging from what we heard and saw Tuesday night, let's hope he's begun a trend that will sweep the country: classical music played with passion, leaving room for some improvisation, too. He's warm, he speaks terrible (but improving) English, self-effacing, and not the least bit condescending.

Improvisation is something we've come to expect and demand at rock and jazz concerts for generations. And in the 19th century and before, as Dudamel duly noted, improvisation was a concert staple for the likes of Mozart, Chopin, and Lizst.

The 28-year-old Dudamel continued his revival of the practice in grand style with fellow Venezuelan musician Gabriela Montero, who riffed on the opening theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for a good seven minutes after she had just wowed a crowd of 14,000 with her (and the orchestra's) rendition of Gershwin's strict reading but improvised-sounding "Rhapsody in Blue."

What was most startling was the varying ages of the audience. I was fearing my kids (who actually said they enjoyed the break from their usual musical diet of hip-hop and heavy metal) would be among the youngest.

Not only were there many kids their age, there were also twenty- and thirty-somethings, all the way up to sixty- and seventy-somethings, many with their pot (this IS California, after all) and their Newcastle Brown Ale along with the expected brie and chardonnay. And yes, the contingent of eighty- and ninetysomethings was there too, all of us taking in the timeless music of "An American in Paris" and Bernstein's "West Side Story" and "On the Town."

Sure, these are popular classics, but they're every bit as serious (as in sophisticated and complex) as the less accessible sonic spinach of a Bartok or a Mahler. If this experience is any indication of where the culture is going with this kind of music, maybe we won't have to consign the symphony orchestra to the cultural scrapheap in our lifetimes after all.