Sinfónica Simón Bolívar de Venezuela

History and Evolution

Since 1975, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra has been widely recognized as a symbol of Venezuelan talent and as an international benchmark, consistently bringing the transformative power of music to the world's most distinguished stages.

Founders

The initial ensemble was composed of Frank Di Polo, Ulyses Ascanio, Sofía Mühlbauer, Carlos Villamizar, Jesús Alfonso, Edgar Aponte, Florentino Mendoza, Carlos Lovera, and Lucero Cáceres.

This foundational ensemble of El Sistema, consisting of 80 musicians, was legally established on February 12th of that same year. From that moment, an astonishing history of successes began to unfold.

On 1999, at the age of 18, Gustavo Dudamel was appointed Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela.

Under his direction, the OSSBV has garnered innumerable accolades: performances at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh Festival, and venues across Germany, including the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the Semperoper Dresden. The orchestra embarked on a significant tour featuring sold-out concerts in Mexico City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and New York's Carnegie Hall, where it was conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and Sir Simon Rattle as part of the "Berlin in Lights" festival, followed by a highly acclaimed tour in Spain.

In the summer of 2008, the Orchestra graced Europe's most prestigious festivals and cities, among them Berlin, Frankfurt, Lucerne, Baden-Baden, Helsinki, and an extraordinarily successful residency at the Salzburg Festival.

April 2009, their North American tour presented the orchestra in sold-out residencies in Houston, Washington, Chicago and London. They also achieved sold-out performances in Europe's most esteemed venues, including the Vienna Konzerthaus, Milan's Teatro alla Scala, and the Salle Pleyel in Paris.

In January 2025, they undertook a tour alongside Maestro Gustavo Dudamel to Europe's most important venues, achieving sold-out performances in Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Madrid, Luxembourg, London, and Paris.

The members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela have performed with world-renowned maestros, including Sir Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Krzysztof Penderecki, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Sir Lorin Maazel.

The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel have released recordings with Deutsche Grammophon, featuring Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7, Mahler's Symphony No. 5, the superhit CD "Fiesta" with works by Latin American composers, as well as a Tchaikovsky album showcasing his Symphony No. 5 alongside "Francesca da Rimini." Currently, they have recordings with Platoon Records with the album "Odyssey" alongside Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and Jorge Glem.