Growing up on a San Diego farm, Richard D. Colburn and his brothers were given two choices: doing chores or studying a musical instrument. Richard chose the latter. Had he better instruction, he could have "out-Heifetzed Heifetz," the 86-year-old businessman says, his piercing blue eyes evidencing a hint of a twinkle.
Instead, Colburn went on to become the Heifetz of music patronage--one of the most generous benefactors on the Los Angeles arts scene. He financed the new $25-million downtown home of the Colburn School for Performing Arts--an afterschool and weekend musical education program he saved from extinction in 1980 when its parent institution, USC, could no longer foot the bill. And he plans to fund an addition to the school, a four-year college-level conservatory that may cost as much as $150 million to establish.
"That sum, without doubt, is one of the largest ever given to the arts in the city," observed Edmund Edelman, a former Los Angeles County supervisor who gets together with Colburn to play the cello. "Anything over $100 million is very hard to top."
Colburn is one of two Lifetime Directors of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a co-founder of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and a major supporter of L.A. Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. He lends instruments to students from his 50-year-old collection and provides a substantial scholarship program at Colburn. It's his intention that the conservatory will be tuition-free.
"I believe in the saying 'Well begun is half done,' " says Colburn, a feisty but good-natured sort. "Music education is expensive--requiring a lot of one-on-one. By providing it to students who couldn't otherwise afford it, I hope they avoid the misfortune I had. The school and conservatory could become L.A.'s Juilliard. Remember Horace Greeley? Civilization always moves West."
Colburn has a substantial profile in the music world, but he is virtually unknown outside it. "If you don't know Mr. Colburn, you don't know of him," says Ayahlushim Hammond, a project manager at the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the Grand Avenue property that the school occupies, next to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
That anonymity is by design, says Colburn, a man of intriguing contrasts. He's so accessible that he sets up an interview at his wedding reception--one hour after marrying wife No. 8. ("How much time does a ceremony take . . . five, 10 minutes--better add 45 minutes for socializing," he says to the reporter, determining what time she should come. But he plays his professional life close to the vest. ("I'm a tradesman--I buy cheap and I sell dear" is how he describes himself.)
