A Bright Note for Downtown

When the new home of the Colburn School of Performing Arts is built on Bunker Hill, the children enrolled there will have front-row seats for the work in progress that is Los Angeles’ Civic Center. Can their musical scales, their symphonies and solos generate a magic like that of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” and bring to life a downtown now in the doldrums?

The 46-year-old school, a fixture for children with dreams of a musical career, has outgrown its quarters on the fringes of the USC campus. More than a decade ago, Richard Colburn of the school’s founding family committed to funding construction of a new home. And after a 13-year search for a site, groundbreaking is scheduled for Nov. 12 at the new location, on Grand Avenue next to the Museum of Contemporary Art and near the Music Center.

The building is scheduled for completion in 1998. The students, from 2 years old through high school, will have the benefit of music studios and a 420-seat chamber music hall that can be used for public concerts.

Perhaps the school will be an inspiration: Local officials and private developers have been struggling to get the stalled Walt Disney Concert Hall project back on track, to complete earthquake repairs at City Hall, to begin construction of the new Roman Catholic cathedral near the county Hall of Administration and to turn a trash-strewn lot on First Street between Spring and Broadway into a patch of urban greenery. We hope the Colburn School is the downbeat to a symphony of renewal downtown.