Place of Intimacy

A 9,200-square-meter performance venue, it will extend the existing campus of the Colburn School of Performing Arts, a private school dedicated to music and dance in California’s largest city. The highlight of the new Colburn Center will be the Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, a concert hall seating 1,000 people. Thanks to the innovative way it has been designed, with various places for artists to appear apart from the central stage, the hall will be versatile enough to host orchestra performances, opera, musical theater and dance. The purpose of the circular design is to create more intimacy between artists and audience, and once completed, the Terri and Jerri Kohl hall will be the home of the Colburn Orchestra, the flagship ensemble of the Colburn School’s Conservatory of Music.

The Colburn Center will also include a dance studio theater for up-and-coming ballet dancers, a roof garden for outdoor performances, a study center and modern, reasonably priced performance spaces for artists and organizations from the community. Forming a trio with the Walt Disney Concert Hall across the street and the dining, hospitality and living complex The Grand, the Colburn Center will be the third Frank O. Gehry design to go up in the same area. The design team was entirely made up of local talent. It included Japanese acoustic designer Yasuhisa Toyota, who also worked on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and multiple Grammy Award-winning sound designer Frederick Vogler.