Orchestrating Change

By Allison Engel on December 16, 2009 8:01 AM

When incoming Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel conducted his first concert at the Hollywood Bowl in September, David Bohnett ’78, the new chairman of the board of the L.A. Philharmonic Association, experienced a welter of emotions.

He was thrilled at the overflow audience of all ages and ethnicities - many of them first-time Philharmonic attendees.

He was moved by “Ode to Joy” played by the musicians of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), a project dear to his heart.

And he felt a pang of nostalgia, remembering how he came to USC at the age of 18 with two suitcases and not knowing a soul. The music lover used to go to Hollywood Bowl concerts regularly - sometimes by himself - sitting on the back benches because that was all he could afford.

But that was before the business administration major fascinated by computers graduated and went on to found the pioneering Internet portal and social media site GeoCities.com. It was before he started the private equity firm Baroda Ventures and became the CEO for OVGuide.com, the world’s most comprehensive video search site. And it was before he became an influential philanthropist, whose 10-year-old David Bohnett Foundation funds social activism by supporting LGBT programs, voting rights, handgun safety and issues of animal research and rights, as well as many arts and educational programs.

Low key and personable, Bohnett does not come across as the major player he is in Southern California.

“Don’t let the unassuming demeanor fool you,” stated a 2009 profile in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. “He has an unwavering determination to right wrongs, a very big heart and a fierce intelligence.” The article was a two-hander, giving Bohnett equal billing with Los Angeles philanthropic legend Eli Broad.

In his role as board chairman of the Philharmonic, it is not exaggerating to say that Bohnett is shaping a new era for classical and contemporary music in Los Angeles.

Being involved in the recruiting and hiring of Dudamel, who has energized the city and the global music world, is one thing. But helping create a network of youth orchestras modeled on El Sistema, the Venezuelan music education system from which Dudamel emerged, has the potential for extraordinary social and cultural change in the city. Bohnett, who himself appreciated playing clarinet in his high school band and orchestra in Hinsdale, Ill., knows how music can change lives.

He has been an enthusiastic backer of YOLA, the parent organization for new youth orchestras in the city.

The first group, a 102-member orchestra of 7- to 14-year-olds, played at the Hollywood Bowl. A younger, “feeder” orchestra is being formed, and more symphonies are planned that could involve as many as 1,000 young musicians in the inner city. The contract with the young scholars is that they receive an instrument for free in return for a commitment to practice, take lessons and rehearse.

Shortly before the Bowl concert, Bohnett visited a YOLA rehearsal at Santee High School in South Los Angeles. After giving a shout-out to the clarinet section, to the players’ delight, he listened as conductor Bruce Kiesling - hired by the L.A. Philharmonic - worked with the young Latino and African-American musicians. Proud parents lined the walls, many with younger children in tow.

“Dudamel has said that the orchestra is a perfect metaphor for a community, and I agree,” said Bohnett, who speaks fondly of his time at USC. He was active in the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and its community service projects. “It was really an advantage to do community service here because at USC you are really a part of the city,” he said.

Bohnett recently returned to the USC Marshall School of Business to speak at a class titled Social Entrepreneurship: The Business of Changing the World and taught by Adlai Wertman.

Wertman said that Bohnett’s visit “inspired our students to be as strategic about their philanthropy as they will be about their businesses … David’s message was loud and clear - use your education, experience and resources to attack injustices.”

Another USC connection has helped establish Bohnett as a committed architectural preservationist.

During a USC Songfest, Bohnett met landscape architecture student Mark Rios ’78, who went on to the architecture graduate program at Harvard University and a notable career. Rios has renovated all four architecturally-significant homes Bohnett and his partner, Tom Gregory, own. Architectural Digest and other top-flight magazines have featured the results.

A constant in each home is a piano. “Always when we entertain, we have music,” Bohnett said. “People end up around the piano.”

Another constant is that the renovations have involved removing existing hedges or gates that separate Bohnett and Gregory’s homes from their neighbors or the street. “We enjoy being part of the community,” Bohnett explained. “We want to be open and accessible.”

Bohnett grew up in a socially-active family, and he ramped up his civic involvement while in graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he was involved in a student counseling service. After moving back to California, he was one of the founders of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation chapter here and witnessed firsthand how education and awareness can change public attitudes.

“It’s important to know we all have a voice,” he said.

Whether through music, social issues, preservation or entrepreneurship, Bohnett, in his quiet but determined way, is making himself heard.

TAGS: community programs, music

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