[thematic music]
>> Less than a hundred years ago Los Angeles looked like this.
A sleepy little village resting in the sun.
Here it stands today a sprawling giant among cities
the miracle metropolis of the 20th century.
It's a bustling busy city but not too busy to have dreams
and not too preoccupied to think about the future.
Though its growth has been fantastic, it has yet found ways to encourage and make
room for cultural assets of permanent worth.
Fine churches, modern schools, research laboratories and well-equipped libraries.
One of the great publicly supported universities,
The University of California at Los Angeles.
A privately endowed institution with a
long tradition of service, the University of Southern California
and many other such colleges and universities.
The County of Los Angeles is bringing to completion an impressive new Music Center.
The main building, the Stately Pavilion
will be the permanent home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra.
The pavilion's lavish interior will rank with the world's finest opera houses.
It's auditorium will seat 3,250 and will accommodate not only symphony,
but opera, ballet and all large scale performances.
Nearby will stand the 750-seat forum designed for more intimate occasions
recitals, chamber music concerts, lectures and civic meetings.
The imposing center theater when completed,
will be a thoroughly modern showplace
for legitimate drama and musical comedy.
It's capacity, 2,100 persons to be entertained in luxurious comfort.
Such is the county music center a community's magnificent dream
being realized on a grand scale.
Still another part of that dream
the Los Angeles County Art Museum. Which will house a permanent collection to be proud of.
It will attract to its galleries the
finest of the world's art treasures. And will also provide facilities for
films, lectures, and special events.
Also in the planning stage
the Los Angeles County Hollywood museum.
Dedicated to the motion picture, television, radio and recording arts
sciences and industries.
All these added to the long cherished Hollywood Bowl,
will soon make Southern California one
of the world's outstanding cultural centers.
There is yet one more achievement to make that dream complete.
That's the California Institute of the Arts.
And this, is it's story.
Like the Music Center before it
and the County Art Museum. CalArts at the moment is half dream half reality.
The CalArts campus as visualized here
is still in the planning stage. Yet CalArts
the school in its formative beginnings does exist
and has for a very long time.
It's story began more than 80 years ago in 1883, to be exact.
That was the year Mrs. Emily Valentine
brought the first grand piano to Los Angeles
and with it, established the city's first school of music.
Today, that school is part of CalArts
and training in every field of music continues.
[classical music]
Whether the student desires to become instrumentalist,
singer, conductor, composer the basic beginnings are much the same.
Whether he's leaning is towards the popular or the classical
his success is equally hard won and CalArts
will prepare him with the finest of professional instruction.
[jazz music]
The CalArts story would not be complete without mention of yet another woman of vision.
Mrs. Nelbert Chouinard,
it was she who very early saw the need for a professional art school.
And so, in 1921 some forty odd years ago the Chouinard Art Institute was founded.
From the beginning, its designers and illustrators have known publication in
first-rate magazines. An honor amounting to national recognition.
Over the years, it has continued to excel in the field of fine arts too.
The work of its painters has been prominent in leading galleries
admired by collector and canister alike.
[slow classical music]
Today, the two institutions: Chouinard's and the School of Music are combined.
Together, they form the beginning nucleus of the California Institute of the Arts.
[slow classical music]
The unique CalArts concept envisions not merely a school of art and music
but a literal and all-inclusive community of the arts.
Thus to this solid beginning there will one day be added schools of the dance,
of opera, of drama in fact of all the performing arts.
The whole CalArts idea is that of the renaissance.
Hawking back to the kind of training Michelangelo knew.
Where master works with pupil where professional teaches apprentice
where one artist learns from another.
[slow classical music]
This continues to be the emphasis on the relationship of the students and their instructors.
[slow classical music]
Each teacher is a working artist in his own right.
A true professional gifted with the power to create
and the equally important ability to pass along
his theories, ideas, and knowledge.
[slow classical music]
CalArts is intended to complement other schools, not duplicate them.
It is intended to fulfill talent's need
and talent is the key word.
At CalArts, the student will be educated in the sciences and humanities
but will spend most of his time in the development of artistic talents.
[elephant sounds]
A man who will draw, will draw.
[slow classical music]
Of course one of the hard facts every artist must learn,
generally in the school of experience. Is how to get along with an art critic
[laughing]
The CalArts philosophy is that art is a wedding of many techniques
that the new may have unexpected beginnings.
Thus, in the atmosphere of a creative workshop
commonplace materials suddenly take on fresh forms.
Inventiveness may lead to the unorthodox even the humorous,
but that's rather the point.
The curious mind must seek its own path towards expression.
[music]
In the beginning, man's earliest artistic urge
found material at hand in the earth itself.
And CalArts honors the ancient techniques as well.
For pottery making is perhaps as old as civilization.
The uses of art are many: to please the eye,
excite the mind, or even to solve everyday problems.
A cooking utensil, a cup to drink from, perhaps a vessel to contain water.
At CalArts, these common objects acquire new aspects of beauty.
[music]
Art and design are everywhere in our lives.
Filling needs, adding satisfactions to our daily existence.
In fact, the well-trained artist is a decidedly useful member of society
and nowadays every industry uses him each in its own way.
The builder, to create a satisfying home.
The automobile manufacturer to create a better vehicle.
The highway engineer to design a better road.
Better frying pan, better whatever it might be.
Each creation becomes more satisfying when aesthetics and
inspiration have been combined in its making.
Now this simple formula is one near and dear to the feminine heart.
For where is there a better outlet for genius than in the colorful world of fashion.
A woman's wardrobe can indeed be a work of art
as any woman would agree and as these
young ladies modeling their own designs tend to prove.
At the annual CalArts Fashion show, the students creations are as chic
as any to be seen in the finest salad.
[up-beat music]
[jazz music]
In the crowded quarters of the moment, CalArt students of necessity are in close touch.
During these rooftop rehearsals, the art
students mingle with the musicians.
[jazz music]
Sculptors mix with singers, painters with printmakers
and between times find opportunity to know
each other's work and informally exchange ideas.
Nowadays, the player of popular music must be a thoroughly trained musician.
Extremely versatile and capable of the most exacting kind of professional performance.
[jazz music]
[piano music]
His classical counterpart must be equally as well trained.
In whatever field of creative activity, standards of the highest excellence
and performance of only the most professional sort.
This is the high goal of CalArts.
[classical music]
Here is the CalArts of tomorrow. An acropolis crowning the hills above Hollywood.
If present plans materialize, and the site can be made available.
A hub of the art world chosen for its central location.
For accessibility to staff and student alike.
It will stand near the Hollywood freeway
in the very heart of the cultural community.
Adjacent to the Hollywood Bowl. Neighbor to the Hollywood Museum.
And within easy reach of the Downtown Music Center.
The Art Museum and the galleries of the area.
CalArts will be a functional workshop planned for inspiration and creation.
Enrollment will be based on artistic achievement and talent potential.
Thus the caliber of students will be top grade.
The total number not too large.
Scholarships will assist the deserving.
CalArts will be dedicated to the future in the knowledge that man's greatest
achievements have occurred at those moments in
history when all the arts flourish together.
Nourishing one another by some mysterious cross-fertilization
of ideas and techniques.
Southern California now possesses the finest of music centers,
galleries, theaters, museums, treasure houses in which to preserve our heritage.
Our treasure is talent,
A natural resource as valuable as diamonds as precious as rubies.
Only the finest of talents will serve
our bright new temples and make them fulfill their purpose.
They must know only the best.
CalArts will provide that best
we'll serve and enrich not only our city and our community
but our nation and the world.
For CalArts is conceived in the philosophy
that Southern California is and will be for generations to come.
The cultural center of the new age.
[music]
[wing howling]