First-name basis

Steve Layton at Sequenza21 adds, "I suppose if the classical world had been cool enough to do a 'Bravo Herbert' or 'Welcome Antal' back in the day, the crowds would never have left."

A visit to said comprehensive microsite reveals that Gustavo Dudamel is referred to as "Gustavo" just about everywhere, an odd choice, I think, considering everyone I know has called him "Dudamel" since first hearing his name. This includes everyone from "industry insiders" (you can imagine how much I hate that phrase) to my college friends who read The Economist profile last year and called to ask if I'd "heard of this Dudamel guy."  Did Obama's people try and switch us over to "Barack" after the election? Absolutely not. I feel like they barely tried to switch us over to "President Obama." Who wants to say "Gustavo" or "Barack" when you can bust out "Dudamel" or "Obama"? DUDamel. oBAMa. Insert coolness-indicating head-bopping motion of your choice when you say either.

From the microsite:

It's challenging to find a full bio on the LA Phil website or the Gustavo ("   ")  microsite, but in the biographical items on the microsite, The Dude is referred to by his first AND last name, which seems like a further odd choice if the press releases and the rest of the site are telling us we're on a first-name basis with him:

Gustavo Dudamel's career was launched in El Sistema, the youth orchestra system widely praised for its social contributions to young people in Venezuela. El Sistema encompasses a music and social program for over 250,000 young Venezuelans who begin their musical instruction at three years of age. The program celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2005.

Following international attention garnered by triumphing in the inaugural Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in May 2004, Gustavo Dudamel made his U.S. debut leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2005 in performances of Silvestre Revueltas' La noche de los mayas and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.

You're showing us childhood photos and we can't call him "Gustavo" here?

I never did his full bio on the LA Phil's website, so I went to his official website and found it there. Far from the casual LA Phil press release, here we have a bio in which Dudamel, Where's My Car is referred to again by his first and last name together (as formal as you get) or by his last name alone:

Following guest appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel's inaugural 2009-10 season as Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director begins on October 3 with ¡Bienvenido Gustavo! This free, day-long musical celebration at the Hollywood Bowl for the Los Angeles community culminates with Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Beethoven's 9th Symphony. On October 8, 2009, Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the inaugural gala at Walt Disney Concert Hall, featuring the world premiere of John Adams's City Noir and Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

Dude, what's your name?

Like the other fifteen classical music publicists in the country, I spent many, many hours in August (and some in September...and maybe a few yesterday) updating my artists' bios. Sondra Radvanovsky's previous bio, for example, had her as "Sondra" everywhere except the first paragraph, and that made me extremely uncomfortable. Why should it, though, when I've been telling my colleagues in the press that she's and old-world diva in terms of repertoire, while being a completely down-to-earth woman-of-2009? No old-world diva would go by "Sondra" in a bio, but would a woman-of-2009 go by "Ms. Radvanovsky" (my least favorite option) or "Radvanovsky" (what I always use)? One thing I've noticed is that female artists' bios often use "Ms. Last Name" while male artists' bios rarely say "Mr. Last Name"; the male version just says "Last Name." But again, if Hilary is recording personal messages to her fans in her hotel room from her MacBook Pro and uploading them to YouTube, wouldn't using "Hilary" in her bio be more in line with her image and attitude toward accessibility? Or is there a time and an outlet for all degrees of formality in artist materials, just as there is in our everyday lives?