When the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) made Gustavo Dudamel its music director, in 2009, his resumé went well beyond leading professional orchestras. The Venezuelan-born conductor, then only 28, also had deep knowledge of El Sistema, the program, founded in his native country, that gives intensive musical training, mentoring, and orchestral experience, free of charge, to youth in low-income and underserved areas. As Dudamel — himself an El Sistema alumnus and longtime director of its youth orchestra — knew, it is rigorous and immersive, based on the idea of empowering social change through music. It was also the model for the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA), a community outreach program that the LA Phil had launched a couple of years earlier. “That was one of the main reasons I came to LA,” said Dudamel recently, emphasizing his passion for El Sistema’s now widely emulated approach and mission. In just over a decade, YOLA has grown from 80 students in a single venue to 1,200 pupils in four sites across the city, each partnering with an existing educational institution. And now, as the Philharmonic enters its centennial year, YOLA has just unveiled plans for a permanent home of its own—a mothership to its other locations—designed by Frank Gehry.

The architect, who created the Walt Disney Concert Hall—LA Phil’s main performance space— in downtown Los Angeles, will be converting a one-story, 1960s bank building in Inglewood, California, for this thriving community program, whose ensembles have performed in top venues around the world. The new facility will accommodate up to 500 students, advancing LA Phil’s goal of doubling YOLA’s current enrollment, across all its locations, by 2022. Inglewood, in southwest Los Angeles County, was chosen because of its population of underserved families, and also, says LA Phil CEO Simon Woods, because it “has become a community on the move, an increasingly happening place, with supportive leadership that gets things done.” Currently, the city is in the midst of ambitious renewal, including the introduction of a sports-and-entertainment district with a new NFL stadium (slated to host the 2022 Super Bowl).