Every season at the LA Phil is made possible by a community of people who believe that music should be part of everyone’s life. To our donors and partners: thank you.

Your generosity brings extraordinary artists to our stages, instruments into young people’s hands, orchestral music into neighborhoods across Los Angeles, and transformative experiences to audiences who might otherwise never have the opportunity to participate. 

Looking back on the LA Phil’s 2025/26 season, we see the impact of donor support everywhere: in our venues filled with longtime listeners and first-time audiences; in young musicians discovering their potential; in emerging artists and arts workers building careers; and in partnerships that bring music beyond our venues and into the communities that make Los Angeles what it is. 

This year carried particular meaning as Gustavo Dudamel completed his final season as Music & Artistic Director, Walt and Lilly Disney Chair. During his tenure, the LA Phil has grown not only in artistic ambition but in its understanding of who an orchestra can serve and where music can reach. From the extraordinary achievements of YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) musicians to the thousands who attend free and low-cost performances, access has become woven into the fabric of our institution. 

That legacy can be measured in more than just performances but in lives affected. Today, the LA Phil welcomes 1.7 million concertgoers annually across its stages and engages 150,000 people each year through education and community programs. More than 100,000 free tickets help remove financial barriers to live performance, alongside 50,000 $1 tickets at the Hollywood Bowl. Nearly 1,700 young musicians participate in YOLA across Los Angeles County, receiving instruments, intensive music education, mentorship, and a community in which to grow. And through broadcasts and digital platforms, the music made on our stages can travel far beyond them.

These numbers tell only part of the story. The rest lives in the people you will meet throughout this report: students taking their next steps after YOLA, young composers hearing their ideas brought to life, musicians and technicians finding their place in the profession, and Angelenos encountering the LA Phil in their own neighborhoods. 

Your support makes all of this possible. As we celebrate a remarkable year and the evolution of Gustavo’s tenure from Music & Artistic Director to the Diane and M. David Paul Artistic and Cultural Laureate and the Jane and Michael Eisner Founding Director and Conductor Laureate of YOLA, we do so with immense gratitude—and with excitement for the next chapter of an LA Phil committed to ensuring that extraordinary music remains within reach of everyone.

Explore the Music For All Report

This year’s Music For All Report is organized around three core pillars of our mission: bringing music into the lives of young people, supporting the next generation of artists and arts workers, and ensuring that everyone—across Los Angeles and beyond—can experience the joy and inspiration of live performance.

We invite you to explore these stories and celebrate the impact your support has made across our city—and far beyond.

Part One: Youth & Families

YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles)

This year, 31 students graduated from YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), each carrying with them a diploma symbolizing the years of musical training, mentorship, and community. Representing four YOLA hubs across the city, the Class of 2026 reflects the program’s growing reach and deep impact on young people’s lives.

Among the institutions that students will attend are Amherst College, Lehigh University, UCLA, Cal State Northridge, University of Pennsylvania, USC, alongside conservatory placements at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and New England Conservatory, among others.

The Class of 2026 embodies the spirit of YOLA—ambitious, resilient, creative, and ready to lead.

YOLA College Program
Scholarships for YOLA Alumni

YOLA serves students from age five through high-school graduation, but the LA Phil sees its commitment to YOLA students as a lifelong partnership.

This year, we are thrilled to report that the LA Phil is currently supporting more than 100 YOLA alumni through scholarship funding. This effort represents the LA Phil’s holistic commitment to YOLA and to helping alleviate the financial barriers associated with achieving an advanced degree, which will remain a priority in the years to come.

YOLA Alumni Spotlight: Ryan A.
Making the Most of Every Opportunity

When Ryan A. joined YOLA at EXPO in 2015, he had never played the clarinet. His mother had seen a news story about YOLA and enrolled him, and when it came time to choose an instrument, he felt like he was in the wand-choosing scene in Harry Potter. “I held it for the first time, and I made a sound on it,” Ryan remembers. “I thought, ‘Well, I can really play this.’”

Over the next decade, Ryan made the most of nearly every opportunity YOLA put within reach. He joined the YOLA Institute, attended Interlochen through a YOLA partnership, mentored younger musicians, and performed on some of the world’s great stages—including Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. Along the way, he challenged himself with increasingly difficult music and built friendships that now stretch across the country.

“Take advantage of the opportunities YOLA offers,” Ryan tells younger students. “If you get accepted, that opportunity is invaluable. It gives you so much to grow—not only as a musician, but as a person.”

Now, Ryan is headed to the University of Pennsylvania, where he plans to study political science. He may not pursue music professionally, but he carries with him the discipline, curiosity, confidence, and community that YOLA helped him develop. “Music, I think, is another language,” he says. “You’re introduced to a whole new world.”

Ryan’s journey is just one of the many extraordinary stories YOLA makes possible: a young person discovers an instrument, embraces every opportunity that follows, and leaves ready for whatever comes next.

YOLA Summer 2026
A Season of Possibility

For YOLA musicians, summer is increasingly a time to stretch beyond the familiar—to learn from new teachers, to perform on new stages, to meet young musicians from across the country and around the world, and to discover just how far music can take them. Summer 2026 offered more opportunities than ever before, with YOLA students participating in prestigious music festivals nationwide, gathering in Los Angeles for the YOLA National Festival, traveling internationally, and performing alongside some of the world’s leading artists.

From YOLA to Festivals Across the Country

This summer, 40 YOLA musicians attended eight leading youth music programs nationwide—a threefold increase from the previous year, made possible through new partnerships and opportunity grants.

Students from YOLA at HOLA (Heart of Los Angeles), Torres, and Inglewood traveled to sites from Alaska to New England, with 17 musicians attending Interlochen, six each at Music Academy of the West and Sitka Fine Arts Camp, four at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, three at Luzerne Music Center, and others attending Brevard Music Center, Idyllwild Arts, and VIA Academy.

Together, these experiences are expanding the pathways available to young musicians and giving them the chance to learn in new environments and see themselves as part of a much larger musical community.

YOLA National Festival: Excellence Through Community

From August 3 to 11, the YOLA National Festival once again brought young musicians from El Sistema-inspired and community-based programs across the United States to Los Angeles for an intensive, tuition-free musical experience. Travel, housing, meals, and programming were provided at no cost, ensuring that financial circumstances did not determine who could participate.

The 2026 Festival featured two distinct cohorts: a Symphony Orchestra Program for musicians ages 14–18 and an Overture Chamber Music Program for musicians ages 12–14. Building on a chamber music pilot introduced in 2025, this year’s Overture program focused entirely on small-ensemble playing, giving younger musicians an opportunity to sharpen their listening, leadership, and collaboration skills.

Across more than a week of rehearsals, sectionals, coaching, and performance, students from both programs learned from outstanding faculty drawn from the LA Phil and the wider field. The Festival culminated in a performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall on August 10, giving these young musicians the opportunity to bring their work to one of the world’s great concert stages.

Support for YOLA National is generously provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies and an anonymous donor. Support for the 2026 YOLA National Festival was provided by The Eisner Foundation.

From Los Angeles to Edinburgh

Just one day after the Festival concluded, a small cohort of YOLA musicians embarked on another extraordinary experience: a journey to Scotland as part of the LA Phil’s residency at the Edinburgh International Festival.

There, musicians from YOLA joined young people from Big Noise, an intensive music education and social change program based in Scotland, for a collaborative Family Concert at Edinburgh’s historic Usher Hall. The August 16 program brought young musicians from Los Angeles and Scotland together through music by Falla, Bizet, Arturo Márquez, Beethoven, and others.

The program also featured the world premiere of On Becoming by Beauregard Chiasson—the 2025/26 Sue Tsao Composer Fellow—creating a powerful connection between two LA Phil Learning programs and giving a young composer the opportunity to have his music carried across the Atlantic by his peers.

And summer continued back home, with YOLA musicians participating in additional artistic and community events throughout August, including appearing at the Hollywood Bowl alongside Gustavo Dudamel.

Taken together, these experiences reveal the growing ecosystem surrounding YOLA.

Endowed support for YOLA on tour is generously provided by The Rafael and Luisa de Marchena-Huyke Foundation.

The LA Phil is grateful to our philanthropic community, particularly our generous Learning Supporters, for championing the activities highlighted above and impactful initiatives like YOLA.  

Composer Fellowship Program
Scoring the Future of Composition

For nearly two decades, the LA Phil’s Composer Fellowship Program (CFP) has given high school-age composers something exceptionally rare: the opportunity to develop their voices within the creative life of a major orchestra. Through sustained mentorship, professional readings and recordings, workshops with leading artists, and direct access to LA Phil musicians and artistic staff, Fellows are treated not as students—but as composers.

During the 2025/26 season, CFP welcomed 15 Fellows, including six new and nine returning students. The Fellows met approximately 30 times throughout the year and completed three major projects: a solo work, a piece for full orchestra, and a chamber work for a mixed-instrument quartet. Under the guidance of Program Director Andrew Norman, Lead Faculty Daniel Allas, and returning faculty Celia Anna Kintscher, Linda Dallimore, and Celka Ojakangas, students strengthened their technique while developing the confidence to take creative risks and define their own artistic voices.

The Fellows also learned directly from an extraordinary range of composers, performers, and music professionals. Guests included composers Edmund Finnis, David Lawrence, and Gabriella Smith; Grammy Award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng; LA Phil Principal Clarinet, Michele and Dudley Rauch Chair, Boris Allakhverdyan and Principal Harp, Ann Ronus Chair, Emmanuel Ceysson; and numerous other professional musicians. LA Phil librarian Benjamin Picard and LA Opera librarian Melisandra Dunker provided specialized training in notation and engraving, helping students master practical tools expected in conservatories, orchestras, and the professional field.

This season brought Fellows closer than ever to the artistic life of the LA Phil. During The Great Wall of Los Angeles, the Green Umbrella program inspired by Judy Baca’s landmark mural, students attended the dress rehearsal and performance and met Gustavo Dudamel.The program’s impact continues long after graduation. Members of this year’s graduating class will head to institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley, New England Conservatory, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Of the 10 Fellows who provided their plans, eight will major or minor in music and of which three will study composition.

Together, these milestones capture what makes CFP so distinctive: young composers are not waiting for permission to enter the world of new music. They are already part of it—learning from working artists, hearing their music performed at the highest level, and beginning to shape what comes next.

Special annual support for the 2025/26 Composer Fellowship Program was provided in part by Faye Greenberg and David Lawrence and The Herb Alpert Foundation. Support for the LA Phil Composer Fellowship Program Endowment Fund is provided by Sue Tsao and the Estate of Mary Calfas Janos.

Part Two: Emerging Artists & Arts Workers

Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen LA Phil Resident Fellows Program
Building the Orchestra of Tomorrow

The Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen LA Phil Resident Fellows program is designed around a pair of powerful ideas: Exceptional musicians deserve the opportunity to compete at the highest level and the chance to help shape a more inclusive future for orchestral music.

Launched in 2018 as a centerpiece of the LA Phil’s Centennial, the fellowship provides outstanding early-career musicians with an intensive professional bridge to permanent orchestral careers. Fellows are fully embedded in the life of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performing alongside the orchestra for at least 20 weeks each season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, on tour, and in chamber, new music, education, and community concerts.

Six Resident Fellows participated in the Los Angles Philharmonic’s 2025/26 season: percussionist Jeremy Davis, violinist Gabriel Esperon, cellist Keeon Guzman, horn player Elizabeth Linares Montero (Nancy and Leslie Abell LA Phil Resident Fellow Chair), violist Bradley Parrimore (Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts LA Phil Resident Fellow Chair), and bassist Matthew Peralta. Along with extensive performance experience, Fellows receive individualized mentorship from LA Phil musicians, support for private lessons and audition travel, a salary and living stipend, and comprehensive benefits—helping remove financial barriers that can make the transition into a professional orchestral career especially difficult.

Since the program began, 18 musicians have been placed within the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Resident Fellows, and alumni have gone on to win permanent positions at leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

In this way, the fellowship creates a continuum of opportunity: early-career musicians gain the experience and support to pursue lasting careers, while young musicians see accomplished artists who can teach, mentor, and model what a future in music might look like. At the same time it is ensuring that the orchestras of tomorrow are strengthened by a wider range of voices, experiences, and perspectives.

The Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen LA Phil Resident Fellows program is made possible through the visionary generosity of Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen, with support from Nancy and Leslie Abell, Alicia Miñana and Rob Lovelace, the Eugene and Marilyn Stein Family Foundation, and Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts.

Workforce Development Program
Creating Pathways Behind the Scenes

The artistry audiences experience onstage depends on an extraordinary network of professionals working behind the scenes. Through its Workforce Development Program (WDP), the LA Phil is helping young adults build pathways into these essential careers in stagecraft and live production.

Created in partnership with IATSE Local 33, the two-year paid training program gives participants hands-on experience at the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center and across LA Phil venues. Working alongside experienced stage technicians, participants develop skills in carpentry, rigging, audio, video, lighting, projection, stage management, and other areas of live production—while earning professional certifications and building the networks needed to pursue careers in the entertainment industry.

During the 2025/26 season, participants put those skills to work in professional settings. Mychael Carter completed multiple show calls at Walt Disney Concert Hall supporting Symphonies for Schools and Symphonies for Youth, while receiving specialized training in QLab performance software and show calling. Carlos Cano, Steven Morales, and Amber Black gained additional real-world audio and event production experience during NBA All-Star Week, working at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Intuit Dome alongside WDP mentors already established in the field.

As Mychael Carter and Steven Morales complete the program this summer, the LA Phil is helping connect them with opportunities and resources through IATSE Local 33 and the broader live-events industry—supporting the critical next step from training into sustained employment.

That cycle continues with the program’s newest participants, Wilson Santos, a YOLA alum from HOLA, and Tyson Smith, who both joined the Workforce Development Program in July 2026. Wilson’s path from YOLA musician to aspiring production professional is a particularly meaningful example of the expanding range of opportunities the LA Phil hopes to create for young people—not only onstage, but throughout the performing arts ecosystem.

By combining paid training, mentorship, certifications, and real professional experience, WDP is helping the next generation discover that a life in music and performance can take many forms—and that some of the most exciting careers begin behind the curtain. 

Emerging Concert Photographers and Through Our Lens:
Concert Photography and Photojournalism Opportunities at The Ford

At The Ford, a concert can be more than a performance—it can also become a classroom, a portfolio-building opportunity, and a first step toward a creative career.

Since 2021, The Ford has partnered with Las Fotos Project, the Boyle Heights-based photography mentoring organization, to give emerging photographers paid, hands-on experience documenting live performance. What began as a small concert photography residency has grown into a robust partnership serving high school and young adult photographers—and in 2026, the program entered its sixth season.

Through The Ford’s Community Residencies program, emerging photographers work inside a major performing arts venue, receiving professional training and mentorship while developing the skills, experience, and networks needed to pursue careers in Los Angeles’ creative industries. Participants photograph artists and performances across The Ford’s season, building portfolios while bringing their own perspectives to the stories unfolding onstage.

That partnership has expanded with Through Our Lens, a photo essay series created with Las Fotos Project’s Creative Career Center and Black Image Center, an LA-based organization dedicated to supporting Black photographers and visual storytellers. 

Through Our Lens moves beyond the concert itself to document the creative process behind it. Emerging photographers are paired with artists featured at The Ford and invited behind the scenes to photograph rehearsals, preparation, and the people and ideas that shape a performance. With guidance from industry professionals, participants develop complete photo essays accompanied by written narratives—building experience not only as photographers, but as journalists and storytellers. 

The collaboration reflects a shared commitment among The Ford, Las Fotos Project, and Black Image Center to young artists: They should have opportunities to tell stories from their own perspectives—and to be paid, mentored, and trusted to do professional creative work. 

Recent Through Our Lens photographers have documented artists including Las Cafeteras, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Get Lit – Words Ignite, The Pharcyde, and Martha Gonzalez, capturing intimate moments that reveal the artistic process from perspectives audiences might otherwise never see. 

These programs are supported in part by the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Part Three: Community Connections

LA Phil Insight
Where Music Meets the City

From the dance floor to the river, from the library to the dinner table, LA Phil Insight spent the 2025/26 season exploring the many ways music can intersect with place, memory, identity, and everyday life. 

Reaching more than 10,000 people and working with a dozen community-based partners, Insight continued to expand the ways audiences encounter the LA Phil—creating experiences that move beyond the traditional concert format and inviting people into music through film, food, visual art, dance, conversation, and public space.

The season began with El Canto de las Manos, María Valverde’s documentary following three Deaf Venezuelan musicians as they prepared to perform Beethoven’s Fidelio in sign language under Gustavo Dudamel. A post-screening conversation brought together Valverde, Dudamel, DJ Kurs, and filmmaker Ava DuVernay to consider accessibility, communication, and the many ways music can be experienced.

Elsewhere downtown, Insight invited Green Umbrella audiences to bring the party from the concert hall to the dance floor through Recovecos: El After, a late-night celebration of Caribbean and Latin American music at La Cita. At Walt Disney Concert Hall, Listening to the Great Wall of Los Angeles transformed Judy Baca’s monumental mural into an exhibition exploring how composers translated histories embedded in the wall’s imagery into sound.

Some of the season’s most memorable programs ventured even farther beyond the concert hall. Ancestral Table, created by composer Mary Prescott with legendary Los Angeles chef Jazz Singsanong of Jitlada, combined performance and a communal meal to explore migration, ecology, family, and cultural inheritance. At the Los Angeles Central Library, Sarah Rara’s Orchis (Book of Flowers) blended video, voice, scent, and hands-on artmaking during the Night at the Library event, transforming the historic building into an after-hours creative playground.

And along the Los Angeles River, Braided River brought artists, ecologists, community advocates, and Tongva cultural practitioners together to consider the relationship between land, water, and restoration. The gathering culminated in a public performance featuring Tina Calderon, Yo-Yo Ma, and Angélica Negrón—placing music directly within the landscape and communities at the heart of the conversation.

Across these programs, Insight asks a simple question: What happens when music becomes a starting point rather than an endpoint?

The answer can look like a film screening, a shared meal, a dance party, a walk along the river—or an unexpected encounter that helps audiences experience art, their city, and one another differently. With support from our philanthropic community, Insight continues to create new ways into the LA Phil and new reasons to gather.

LA Phil Insight is generously supported by Linda and David Shaheen.

LA Phil collaborations around The Great Wall of Los Angeles and Braided River were generously supported by the Hillenburg Family. 

Neighborhood Concerts
Music, Close to Home

Through its Neighborhood Concerts program, the LA Phil brings musicians directly into communities across Los Angeles County—offering free performances in familiar local spaces and creating new opportunities for neighbors to gather around music.

In December 2025, Neighborhood Concerts returned with four free performances held in Downey, Sylmar, Hacienda Heights, and Inglewood and presented in partnership with local venues, civic leaders, and community organizations. Together, the concerts reflected a simple but essential idea: Extraordinary music should be accessible regardless of geography, income, or zip code.

At Downey and Inglewood, the full Los Angeles Philharmonic performed under the baton of Dudamel Fellow Miguel Sepúlveda. LA-based mariachi singer Lupita Infante opened the evenings, followed by a program spanning music by Gabriela Ortiz, Tchaikovsky, and the premiere presentations of Superbloom by LA Phil Composer Fellowship Program alumnus Noah Godard, former Steven Stucky Composer Fellow.

In Sylmar and Hacienda Heights, members of the orchestra presented intimate chamber performances featuring music by Jessie Montgomery, Francis Poulenc, and Mozart. Each event also included pre-concert activities developed with local arts organizations, extending the experience beyond the performance itself and inviting audiences to engage with music in multiple ways.

The locations mattered as much as the repertoire. Concerts took place at the Downey Theatre, Los Angeles Mission College, Hacienda Heights Community Center, and the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center—spaces already embedded in the lives of the communities they serve.

Neighborhood Concerts are programs central to the LA Phil’s commitment to Los Angeles, strengthening partnerships with local organizations, introducing new listeners to the orchestra, and creating shared cultural experiences close to home.

They also reveal how the LA Phil’s programs increasingly connect with one another. A young composer nurtured through the Composer Fellowship Program can hear his work premiered by the orchestra in neighborhoods across Los Angeles; musicians who perform on the world’s great stages can share that same artistry in a local community center or college auditorium.

Through Neighborhood Concerts, our commitment to access is further realized: a world-class orchestra, a free seat, and an extraordinary musical experience right in your own community.

LA Phil Affiliates
Making Music for All, Together

For more than a century, some of the LA Phil’s most dedicated supporters have done more than attend concerts or make gifts. They have rolled up their sleeves, welcomed students, shared their love of music with their neighbors, and helped make the LA Phil a more connected part of Los Angeles.

Today, the LA Phil Affiliates include more than 500 members across 11 committees, united by a shared commitment to volunteer service, community engagement, and philanthropy. Their work touches nearly every part of the LA Phil’s access mission—from helping thousands of students experience their first orchestral concert to supporting YOLA, family programs, community events, and Learning initiatives across the city.

For many Affiliates, that work is deeply personal.

Peninsula Committee member Monica McAllister describes volunteering with young audiences at Walt Disney Concert Hall: “You see these young people arrive at Walt Disney Concert Hall, their eyes wide with excitement, stepping into a world they never imagined possible. That moment alone makes it all worth it.”

Through Symphonies for Schools and Symphonies for Youth, Affiliate volunteers help welcome young people and families to specially designed concerts, assist with pre-concert activities, and help create an environment in which a first encounter with orchestral music can feel joyful and inviting. Affiliates also support YOLA, LA Soundscapes at The Ford, invited rehearsals, and other LA Phil Learning programs throughout the year.

But the impact moves in both directions. Volunteering gives members a way to deepen their own relationship with music while building friendships with people who share their commitment to the arts.

As San Marino–Pasadena Committee President Diane Lam reflected, “I think the Affiliate programs are wonderful—they bring like-minded people together around a shared love of music… there’s a real sense of energy and momentum—we’re growing, evolving, and finding new ways to connect people to the LA Phil and to each other.”

That sense of community, which has been fostered by the LA Phil since its first support group was formed in 1923, is at the heart of the Affiliates. Over the decades, committees across Los Angeles have hosted “musicales,” salons, benefits, and neighborhood gatherings; raised vital funds for the orchestra and its learning programs; and served as ambassadors connecting the LA Phil with communities throughout the region.

The Affiliates offer a way to become personally part of that story.

Whether your interests lie in volunteering with young people, supporting music education, meeting fellow music lovers, fundraising, or connecting the LA Phil more deeply with your own community, there is a place to participate. No professional musical experience is required—only a belief in the power of music and a desire to share it.

To learn more about joining an LA Phil Affiliate committee, visit us here.

Music for All is not only something the LA Phil provides, it is something our community creates together. 

Partner Spotlight: Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts
A Leading Partner in Music Access

For more than 75 years, Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts has helped the LA Phil open doors to music for young people across Southern California. Today, its extraordinary partnership reaches across some of the institution’s most important Learning initiatives. Thanks to the generosity of Pasadena Showcase, the LA Phil can support a child’s first orchestral experience and opportunities for the next generation of professional musicians.

The organization’s longstanding support helps make YOLA possible, advances the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen LA Phil Resident Fellows program, and brings students to Walt Disney Concert Hall for Symphonies for Schools, where young people can experience the LA Phil live—often for the first time.

This commitment reflects Pasadena Showcase’s own enduring mission to nurture the study and appreciation of music. Each year, proceeds from the Pasadena Showcase House of Design enable the organization to contribute more than $1 million to over 80 nonprofit organizations while supporting scholarships, school-based programs, youth concerts, and the expansion of access to music.

Few partners have played such a sustained and wide-ranging role in the LA Phil’s Learning work. Across decades of generosity, Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts has helped ensure that thousands of young people can discover music, deepen their talents, and imagine where those experiences might lead.

Looking Ahead
The Next Chapter of Music for All

The stories in this report reflect a fundamental belief of the LA Phil: Extraordinary music matters most when everyone has the opportunity to experience it, make it, and see a place for themselves within it.

During Gustavo Dudamel’s transformative tenure, that belief grew into an enduring institutional commitment—expressed through YOLA and music education, free and low-cost performances, community partnerships, and new pathways into creative careers.

As we look toward Daniel Harding’s future as Music Director beginning in 2027/28, that commitment will continue to grow. Harding has spoken passionately about the opportunities that shaped his own life and about the importance of giving young people the chance to discover what music can mean for theirs.