Govan suggested that he and the others "ought to press the agenda of an arts-based education." Wood said that such an effort might start with the city's charter schools but that he was "really nervous about tackling the education bureaucracy."
Calling the institutions' education programs "one of the most important things we have," Domingo lamented that music instruction isn't mandatory in public schools. "We have such a disadvantage today, with the pop music available for every kid," he said.
Borda, who took the reins of the L.A. Philharmonic in 2000 after leading the New York Philharmonic, emphasized that providing arts education "in every single school" is "probably not the best use of what we do" in terms of developing new constituencies.
Rather, she said, the orchestra and other large cultural organizations can serve as "conveners" that leverage their resources to "bring together the many different fabrics of the community."
She underscored the Philharmonic's naming of new music director Gustavo Dudamel, a 27-year-old Spanish-speaking Venezuelan, as "a very determined statement" of the orchestra's commitment to serving Southern California's growing Latino population.
Inevitably the discussion turned toward the giant pop-culture force that has long overshadowed the arts in Los Angeles: Hollywood. For decades among L.A. cultural leaders, Hollywood was regarded with a mixture of envy and wishful thinking. Efforts to solicit Hollywood financial support and integrate Hollywood artists into the city's high-culture scene often produced mixed results.
But according to the five panelists, that old scenario no longer applies.
While Hollywood is too sprawling an entity to be grasped or generalized about, Ritchie said, "there are many individuals or corporate entities that are part of the larger entertainment industry that I think do take part in what we're doing."
However, the group agreed that Los Angeles still lags behind other metropolises in private arts philanthropy. "I guarantee you, Chicago is giving more per capita than L.A.," Wood said.
The question of what it means to program "locally" in a city as cosmopolitan and globalized as Los Angeles has become increasingly complex, the leaders agreed.
Wood, former president of the Art Institute of Chicago, said the Getty is responding to this reality by addressing some of L.A.'s "built-in communities" with a show on Sinai icons and upcoming exhibitions of Mexican antiquities and Cambodian bronzes.
