Gustavo Dudamel plays with young musicians during a sneak peek and early test of the sound inside the Frank Gehry-designed Beckmen YOLA Center, the future home of the L.A. Phil’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. For the record: A previous version of this story said the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles string players performed Bach’s Fourth “Brandenburg” Concerto. Musicians from Youth Orchestra …
In the decades since engineers first blanketed the Los Angeles River with concrete, working-class communities along its armored banks have struggled with blight, poverty and crowding — unintended consequences perhaps of an epic bid to control Mother Nature. Areas off the river’s east bank near downtown L.A., for example, were described by home lenders as being honeycombed with “diverse and …