The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

*The Music Center's tour is called the Symphonian Tour, and it is a 90-minute docent-led tour of The Music Center’s four theatres: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall.  

The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is the first and largest of the four Music Center venues, downtown. It was renamed the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in honor of Dorothy Buffum Chandler who was a prominent humanitarian and a feminist icon, best known for her philanthropic fundraising efforts on behalf of the performing arts. She has been praised for her successful efforts to build a performing arts center for Los Angeles and for opening up opportunities for newer demographics to become members of the musical community.

Dorothy Chandler rose to prominence after meeting and marrying Norman Chandler, the eldest son of the family who had published the Los Angeles Times since 1883. She herself worked at the Los Angeles Times Mirror Company from 1948 to 1976 and inaugurated the Times Woman of the Year award which was given to 243 women from 1950 through 1976. 

In 1956, Chandler was appointed to the Committee on Education Beyond the High School by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson named her to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information. Chandler also chaired the committee that organized a series of fundraising concerts to reopen the Hollywood Bowl, which had closed due to financial hardship in 1950.  

The Los Angeles Music Center held its first performance on December 6, 1964, and served as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1964 until 2003 when the Music Center opened Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The Pavilion itself has one of the largest stages in the United States and has been the venue for countless iconic performances by talented music and dance professionals. It’s a gorgeous work of architecture and design and is now home to the LA Opera and Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center.