The Rotary Club of Beverly Hills welcomed Kim Noltemy, president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, as the guest speaker at its July 20 luncheon. Noltemy joined the LA Phil after high-profile stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Association.
Since arriving in 2024, she has overseen several impressive achievements, including the new Terri and Jerry Kohl Artists Pavilion at the Hollywood Bowl and an innovative new leadership system.
Topics of her remarks ranged from a history of the LA Phil to the vision needed to attract younger audiences.
Noltemy began by noting, “Somebody referenced this as a lunch of music. Unfortunately, I am not a good musician. I cannot play for you. I cannot sing for you, but I can hopefully inspire you to want to go to more concerts and events that the LA Phil presents because we’re definitely a one-of-a-kind organization.”
The description is an apt one. The LA Phil is the largest orchestra in the world in terms of budget and breadth of activity, with some 350 events per year.
The orchestra was founded by William Andrews Clark in 1919.
“There was already an orchestra in town. I don’t know if you all knew that,” said Noltemy. “And Clark felt that they were not open enough and egalitarian enough and he decided to make his own orchestra. And this is the orchestra that survived. And the story of the LA Phil is pretty amazing. There are so many pivotal moments that have made the LA Phil what it is today.”
Today, no other orchestra earns as much revenue.
Noltemy observes, “The average orchestra in the United States earns about 30% of its whole budget and the rest is through donations. And LA Phil earns 70% of its money through ticket sales and other activities. And 30% of our budget is through donations, which also allows us to be able to build an endowment to make sure that the LA Phil is thriving for decades to come.”
The organization is responsible for four venues: the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, The Ford and the Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood. The diversity of programming is key to the overall success of the LA Phil.
Noltemy points out that the LA Phil’s first performance at the Hollywood Bowl took place in 1922. Each summer since then, the venue has attracted an audience that enjoys the more casual, outdoor setting and unique way to experience music that comes with the Bowl.
“In the ’80s and ’90s, the LA Phil worked really, really hard to make the Hollywood Bowl a venue that actually generated money to support the artistic vision of the LA Phil,” she said.
The Hollywood Bowl has also hosted some of the organization’s most daring and expensive performances. The star-studded production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 2025 was mounted at a cost of $1.5 million per night. The sold-out, three-night run was widely praised.
In many ways, the success of the LA Phil can be traced to a willingness to take risks. Noltemy paid tribute to the vision of her predecessors such as Ernest Fleischmann, who hired Zubin Mehta, and Deborah Borda, who brought on Gustavo Dudamel. Both propelled the LA Phil into global acclaim.
“Zubin Mehta absolutely transformed the orchestra in terms of its level of playing from maybe more of a regional orchestra to an orchestra that was attracting talent from around the world. And of course, Deborah’s brilliant plan to entice Gustavo Dudamel to L.A. was a huge risk. Everyone knows how famous he is now. When Deborah hired him, nobody knew who he was. He was this young guy from Venezuela where they had their own system called El Sistema that trained thousands of people to play classical music at the highest level in the world,” she said.
Dudamel would go on to change the way orchestras operate.
“He brought a lot of new ideas about music that classical music can have a program that can have a pop star and a classical standard classical piece. You can have new commissions and bring new audiences in and there’s so many things he’s done over the years. All of that history is so important to the future. It informs how we think, what the DNA of the organization is. We operate the Hollywood Bowl and the Ford Theater, which I don’t know if any of you have been. It’s a small venue, but it’s gorgeous. I encourage you to go to a concert there,” said Noltemy.
Five years ago the LA Phil opened the Beckmen YOLA Center as a hub for the YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) program created by Dudamel.
“It’s almost in its 20th year and 5,000 students have gone through the program. It started small and it’s built up over time. And right now, we have approximately 1,500 students enrolled each year. We help them get into college. We give them counseling for their academics. We do full services to help them succeed in life because they’re part of the LA Phil family and we want to make sure that they go out in the world and do great things for music,” said Noltemy.
Sometimes, music does great things for the world.
“On August 23, we’re doing a concert to help raise money for the tragedy in Venezuela. Gustavo is conducting it. There will be all these amazing guest artists and YouTube is going to live stream that for us, but they’re not going to just live stream it. They’re going to have an interactive component and they’re helping us raise money for the cause. And in addition to that, some of the networks will also be carrying that live stream. The radio will be carrying. So, you put all this together and that’s the key. We have to think differently, and we cannot just be thinking in a linear fashion,” said Noltemy.
“Thinking differently” is what Noltemy has done in connection with the upcoming artistic leadership lineup. Daniel Harding will take the reins as music director for the 2027/28 season when Dudamel departs.
“Daniel is a brilliant musician. He actually became famous at the age of 16 as a great conductor. He’s 50 now, so he has more experience than some of the 80-year-old conductors do in terms of how long he’s been on the stage. But Daniel brings a different energy and excitement,” said Noltemy.
The LA Phil has also hired a group of great artists in addition to Harding, creating, in Noltemy’s words, “the ultimate market segmentation.”
“You have Esa-Pekka Salonen who’s actually doing five weeks with us a year, who is the guru of new music, cutting-edge music, adding dance to symphonic. He also loves to do technology with symphonic and he’s working on a collaboration with Data Lab, which just opened across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall,” said Noltemy.
She added, “You have people like Daniel Harding that specialize in how you can use your actual venue to connect people better with what you do, how you can bring in new personalities, how you can bring in different arts, visual arts, film, all of that. And so, when you put this all together, we have devised a way to figure out how we can reach as many people in Los Angeles as possible. Not with one person, because how can one person do that? How can one person reach everybody? You need all different types of personalities with different focuses and different specialties to reach our incredibly unique and diverse population here in Los Angeles.”
Although he has moved on to a new role at the New York Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel will hold the title of Artistic and Cultural Laureate of the LA Phil and Founding Director and Conductor Laureate of YOLA.
“People were concerned with Gustavo leaving that maybe we wouldn’t be committed to YOLA. YOLA is in our blood now. It so important to what we do. And I would say that one of Daniel Harding’s goals is to take the YOLA orchestra on a tour to all of the Frank Gehry halls around the world,” said Noltemy.
There are also plenty of minds to open here at home.
“People laugh when I say that everyone doesn’t have to like classical music. But I don’t want them to say they don’t like it because they heard it in an elevator or something crazy like that. Go to a classical music concert, and if you don’t like it, fine. But give it a try. Most people in the end do like it. It’s important for people to experience a place where they can forget about all the horrible things that happen in the world. You can go into Walt Disney Concert Hall or go to the Hollywood Bowl, and literally forget about all of that for two hours of your life and that is transformation.”
