Students on stage at the LA Phil’s new Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center in downtown Inglewood, in Los Angeles County. Photo: Joshua White
“In just over a decade, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), led by LA Phil Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, has become one of the country’s most influential music education programs,” writes Victoria Looseleaf in Monday’s (8/2) San Francisco Classical Voice. “And now … YOLA at Inglewood will be the program’s fifth site (YOLA currently operates at four locations in L.A.), … the first to be situated at its own dedicated home: the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center (BYC)…. The Center … is expected to begin classes in the fall. A planned grand opening in August has been put on hold pending the course of the Delta variant in the L.A. region. Designed by Frank Gehry, this former bank building in downtown Inglewood has been transformed into a 25,000-square-foot purpose-built facility that will expand the existing YOLA programs…. The Center’s … Edgerton Foundation Performance Hall [is] equal in size to that of Walt Disney Concert Hall, with collapsible seating for up to 272 people…. There are also spaces for … practice studios, large ensemble rooms, … a choir room … a technology-enabled classroom, a music library, instrument storage areas, and office and meeting spaces.”
