After recently announcing major cuts to its youth orchestra, the L.A. Phil has secured additional donor funding to ensure the East L.A. branch of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program will continue at full capacity until the end of the school year.
In an email to the students’ parents last week, the nonprofit organization announced that it would need to “significantly modify” the programming at the Esteban E. Torres High School site “due to unanticipated financial and funding challenges for the organization.” With these proposed changes, the site’s teaching artists were laid off, the younger students’ programming was gutted and practices for the older students were reduced.
The students’ parents and the local community rallied together in response to the cuts, creating a campaign on Instagram and organizing at town hall meetings. After hearing this outcry and receiving additional funds, the L.A. Phil has been able to temporarily preserve the Torres site.
In a statement to The Times on Wednesday, LA Phil President and CEO Kim Noltemy says, “We are thrilled our donors recognized that this funding provides vital access to music education for the East LA community.”
“Joining together, we have and will continue working tirelessly over the coming months to ensure we remain in a position to support this program, because it is more important than ever,” said Noltemy.
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel rehearses with young musicians from around the country participating in the L.A. Phil’s annual YOLA National Program at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2023.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
YOLA has offered a free musical education to students ages 5 through 18 since 2007. Run by the L.A. Phil, the program gives students access to free instruments and the firsthand experience of being in a musical ensemble. YOLA currently operates out of Inglewood, East L.A., Rampart District and Westlake/MacArthur Park. The Torres site, specifically, serves 165 students.
This program has been championed by star conductor Gustavo Dudamel since he first came to L.A. in 2009. Its teaching format is heavily inspired by El Sistema, the publicly funded program where he first learned music in Venezuela. After his 17-year tenure with the L.A. Phil, the conductor will be leaving the orchestra in June to work with the New York Philharmonic.
An L.A. Phil spokesperson told The Times that their ongoing funding challenges come from “fundraising limitations and rising operating costs,” while also maintaining their day-to-day operations, including free/low-cost community programs.
These cuts were originally set to go into effect after Dec. 12, months before Dudamel’s departure. But with these new funds, the instruction and rehearsal time will stay fully operational, and the previously laid-off staff will be reinstated for the remainder of the program.
These tentative revisions were also announced days before the teaching artists voted to unionize, under the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. There has been some speculation about whether this unionization played a role in these cuts.
In a statement to the Times, the L.A. Phil says it has a long history of “working constructively with unions” and that the cuts were based “solely [on] financial and organizational needs.”
At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, the L.A. Phil Board will evaluate the Torres site to see if it is the “best and most sustainable location for YOLA programming after this school year.” The Philharmonic says in the release that its board “is committed to sustaining a long-term YOLA program in the East LA community.”
In an effort to build a transparent, collaborative community, the Phil has also announced that it will work to create a parent advisory committee where YOLA families will be heard as future decisions are made.
