LA Phil Taps OrchKids Staffer to Run YOLA and Its New Center

Camille Delaney-McNeil, director of programs for the Baltimore Symphony’s much admired OrchKids, is to be the inaugural director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center at Inglewood (BYC). The 25,000-square foot, $15 million facility, designed, like Walt Disney Hall, by Frank Gehry, opens August 1 and welcomes its first students in the fall. It is the first building fully dedicated to the 14-year-old YOLA program and the fifth YOLA site, drawing students from Inglewood and environs. The other four sites are in South LA, the Rampart District, Westlake/MacArthur Park, and East LA.

Delaney-McNeil is to oversee them all, as well as the YOLA National Symposium and Festival. She starts June 28 and reports to the Philharmonic’s VP of Learning Elsje Kibler-Vermaas.

YOLA (Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles) is modelled after El Sistema, of which the LA Phil’s Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel has long been the official the poster child. Children five through 18 from under-resourced communities are given free instruments and instruction, usually after school, and perform together as opportunities arise. YOLA has served some 1300 students in the area. The concept is to build self-esteem and a sense of belonging through music making.

Noting Delaney-McNeil’s “strong skillset and unparalleled experience” Dudamel said, “Now more than ever, arts institutions must be a part of the communities that surround them. It is only through that connection and mutual understanding that we will be able to create meaningful, sustainable change and to truly come together in our shared mission of providing youth with access to music and education.”

LA Phil President and CEO Chad Smith called YOLA "the center of the LA Phil’s vision for the future….. Camille’s commitment to connecting young minds with classical music, her dedication to social change and her experience in creating spaces in which communities can thrive makes her the ideal leader for our first dedicated space for YOLA.”

As with the Gehry-designed New World Center in Miami Beach, FL, BYC has spaces equipped with a vast array of distance-learning technology, for interaction among educators, students, and administrators worldwide.

The building is named for its lead donors, who own Beckman Vineyards.

Trained as a singer and a flutist, Delaney-McNeil holds a BM from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MM from the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is a graduate of the inaugural SphinxLEAD, a leadership development program of the much admired Sphinx Organization. Her first job was with the Baltimore Symphony.