Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles with founder and conductor Charles Dickerson III at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2019.
“Disney’s live-action team is in early development on a movie for Disney+ about the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and its founder, artistic director and longtime conductor Charles Dickerson III,” writes Andreas Wiseman in Tuesday’s (9/15) Deadline.com. “Writer Bobby Smith Jr (Jason’s Lyric) … will serve as writer and executive producer. Longtime Disney production executive and producer Brigham Taylor (The Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp) will produce via his Taylor Made Film Productions banner. Founded in 2009, the ICYOLA is the largest majority African-American orchestra in America and has helped transform the lives of hundreds of young Angelenos who go on to perform in settings including the Getty Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Staples Center, as well as throughout South Los Angeles’ church community. Dickerson … has spent decades trying to make classical music more inclusive to communities of color…. Last year, the orchestra was expanded to Chicago, where it is a free program funded through nonprofits…. Taylor is well known for working on a string of Disney tentpoles during his 20-year career at the studio, including Tron: Legacy and the Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises.”
