Conductor Gustavo Dudamel's Musical Mission

There's something about Gustavo Dudamel. Maybe it's the hair? Maybe it's the joy he exudes when he's conducting. At the age of 29, he's classical music's reigning rock star. Everything is going for him - critical international acclaim, recording contracts, and last fall, he took over the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Ask him about it, and he'll tell you he owes it all to a remarkable program in his native Venezuela, a social program that has used music to change his own life and the lives of millions of children there. Venezuelans call it "El Sistema" - "The System," and Dudamel wants to bring it to the U.S., where he believes it can work wonders.

But before we tell you about it, we want you to see why Dudamel is simply the most exciting conductor in the world. It's probably because, for him, music is not just his profession. It's not even just his passion. He couldn't get through the day without it.

Extra: Gustavo Dudamel Inspiring Children
Extra: Dudamel's Most Embarrassing Moment
Extra: Gustavo Dudamel In Rehearsal

"It's something that I need. It's like the air. It's like water. It's like food. I need music," he told "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon. "I have to be, you know, always around the sound and the magic.

When "60 Minutes" was there, it was a huge day for this kid from Venezuela - his first rehearsal on his first day as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

At 29, he's by far the youngest maestro of any major orchestra in the world. But age is not the only thing that distinguishes him from the other guys: there is something about Dudamel that is primal, something that makes people describe him as a "conducting animal."

He coaxes his musicians. He inspires them. And he amuses them.

He was rehearsing Gustav Mahler's turbulent 1st Symphony for the most anticipated conducting debut in decades - his own!

"If you ask me if I'm nervous, I'm not nervous, never," Dudamel told Simon.

Asked if he's ever been scared, Dudamel said, "About music? No."

When Gustav Mahler reaches his crescendo, so does Gustavo Dudamel, conducting.

He and Simon headed to Hollywood, not a bad place for a guy loaded with talent and charisma. Dudamel was so sought after he could have conducted almost anywhere. He chose Los Angeles in part because he thought it was a good place to transplant the system to the U.S.

It's the first time Dudamel and his wife have both lived in the U.S. They believe that teaching classical music can transform the lives of thousands of L.A. kids.

"You know can you imagine classical music for everybody? You know, this is a crazy dream. But it's true, because it's happening," Dudamel explained.

Asked what he wants to build for the future, Dudamel told Simon, "To build a better life through the music and I think speaking with music you can do many things."

A better life through music! That's the idea behind "YOLA," The Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles. Dudamel wanted it and he got it - an orchestra with an ambitious social agenda.

"We wanna develop extraordinary human beings, one by one," explained Gretchen Nielsen who, as the philharmonic's education director, runs YOLA.

Asked what she hopes to accomplish, Nielsen said, "I think we're really striving to change the landscape of Los Angeles. We wanna see these kids graduate. We want to see them just connect to the world in ways that they might not have normally otherwise. And we wanna see it across this city."

"You're speaking of something which resembles a revolution in this community," Simon remarked.

"It feels like a revolution because it builds," she replied.

It went from nothing three years ago to a free music education program, that after school four hours a day, four days a week, teaches the basics to 300 kids from South L.A., one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

They're taught everything from the language of music to the fundamentals of rhythm, to how to get that clarinet to make a sound.

On Saturdays, all the kids get together in an orchestra. The day we were there, so was Dudamel. He's been conducting youth orchestras back in Venezuela since he was 13 and has his own way of getting musicians to understand the music.

Almost none of these kids knew anything about classical music before they came to YOLA. What Dudamel knows is that the program does a lot more than teach music. It builds character, discipline and team work and it keeps kids off the streets.

Asked why she picked this neighborhood, Nielsen said, "There are kids in that neighborhood who never leave the boundaries of South L.A. It's needed for them to be able to bust out of the confines of that neighborhood.

They couldn't have "busted out" much further than to the "Hollywood Bowl," a famed outdoor performance venue.

The Bowl may have been empty, but this grandest of stages was packed with youngsters. Dudamel was rehearsing these musicians, many of whom picked up their instruments for the first time only a couple of years ago.

Two days later they were back, playing in a music festival welcoming Dudamel to town, this time before 18,000 people.

What's his vision for the future of YOLA?

"To multiply all the program in Los Angeles and to go around the country," Dudamel said.

Dudamel was in Chicago last year to help make that happen. He went there for a symposium on what The System is all about.

The head of The System in the U.S. said it's already spreading.

And what better way to promote it than this: Venezuela's Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, flown in for the symposium. Dudamel has been conducting these musicians for 11 years now. They filled up Chicago's Orchestra Hall for a rehearsal.

All these musicians have one thing in common: they started out as youngsters in neighborhood orchestras. That's how the system works.

When we went to Venezuela, we found them everywhere - in schools, abandoned buildings, juvenile detention centers, and even in jails.

Six hundred orchestras and choirs in all - a massive national program with more
than a quarter of a million kids - kids like Dudamel, who started in The
System when he was five and was doing pretty well when we first met him 10
years ago. He says The System kept him out of trouble.

"You speak about the message of 'El Sistema.' What is that message?" Simon asked.

"That through music, through arts is possible to change life of thousands of children, change the life of a complete society," Dudamel said.

Hardly any place needs that change more than West Baltimore, where poverty, drugs, and shootings are endemic; where since last Fall, young children carrying musical instruments to school has been a common sight.

About 150 pre-K to third graders at Lockerman Bundy Elementary School belong to a new privately funded music program started by Marin Alsop, the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Called "Orchestra Kids" - or - "Orchkids" for short, it's another example of the system taking root in America.

"It's all about exposure at a very, very young age. There's so many skill sets that you need: coordination, you have to develop your ear, you have to develop your brain and just like learning a foreign language, the younger you start, the more fluent you become," Alsop explained.

"And that's what you're trying to do with OrchKids?" Simon asked.

"You know, it's sort of a work in progress," Alsop said.

Work really kicked off last October when a truck pulled up at the school carrying $50,000 worth of musical instruments - enough for an orchestra - and enough to make these kids think it was Christmas.

Parents are parents. When you offer someone's child an opportunity to better themselves, I mean, all the par. They jump at it," Alsop said.

We saw an example of that when Alsop and Dan Trahey, who runs OrchKids, ran into tuba player Miguel Ware. He's five.

Parents have to sign a contract, promising that kids like Miguel will be there and get good grades and take care of their instruments.

When the regular school day ends at 3:15 p.m., the kids start making music. If they stick with the program, they'll be doing it all the way from kindergarten to the fifth grade.

A staff of about 15 teachers, some of them musicians from the Baltimore Symphony, work with the kids.

"You always talk about how music can transform the life of a child. Can you be more specific? How does music actually do this transformation?" Simon asked.

"It's a discipline. And if you have this kind of discipline from the beginning of your life, it's something," Dudamel said.

"So when you give a little violin to a little kid, you feel like you're doing something which is life-transforming?" Simon asked.

"Absolutely," Dudamel said.

DeShane Parker, a single mother with three children in the program, says they love it. "They wanna come to school every day. They don't wanna miss a day from the program. And now that they're bringing their instruments home, it's just teaching 'em how to be, you know, better children and responsible," she said.

"What is it about the cello that you like?" Simon asked one of the kids.

"You can play different sounds on different strings and you can make it sound different. You can play open notes and harmonics," the child replied.

And the kids in Baltimore are already picking up the baton - a baton which could one day take them someplace like the L.A. Philharmonic, making their own debut.

But this was maestro Gustavo Dudamel's debut as music director of the philharmonic, from the City of Angels and stars.

Produced by Harry Radliffe