A Peek Inside Colburn School
Eric Richardson
[Flickr]
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — On Saturday the Colburn School will be having its first move-in day. For the first time in its fifty-seven year history, the school will be welcoming students to on-campus housing as it christens 326,000 square feet of new space on Bunker Hill.
Yesterday I met up with Barbara Vyden, Colburn's Director of Development, to get a look around the new space. In three years of living Downtown it marked the first time I'd set foot in the school, a sad admission given the more than one hundred public performances put on each year.
The Colburn School started in 1950, but didn't move into the Downtown core until its Grand Avenue building was opened in 1998. Along with the programs it provides its full-time students, the school offers a range of classes that age in age from one to adult.
While Colburn's event calendar may be empty at the moment, trust that to be just the transition of beginning a new year. In the next few weeks the school will come back to life and begin another year of providing Downtown residents with another nearby space to expand their cultural horizons.
I know when Dorothy Chandler and her group were planning the Los Angeles Music Center in the early 1960s, a future phase they had in mind involved the creation of a school for the performing arts, except it perhaps was to have been nearer to First Street intead of Second.
That goal was but a pipe dream at the time, and even as recently as the 1980s, or also around the years when getting Disney Concert Hall fully funded and built seemed not much less dreamy-eyed.
I'm sure Mrs. Chandler would be as delighted with the new (and/or larger) Colburn School, and its proximity to an expanded Music Center, of whose core she willed into existence over 40 years ago, as I am.