Los Angeles Children's Chorus Receives Largest Grant In Its History

The GRAMMY-winning Los Angeles Children’s Chorus (LACC) has announced that it has received a 2026 General Operating Support Grant from the Perenchio Foundation. The $2,040,000 grant, which will be distributed over three years, is the largest in LACC’s history. It reflects the strength of LACC’s programs and governance practices, and the significant role the chorus plays in the community. LACC is currently celebrating its 40th Anniversary.

Perenchio Foundation's General Operating Support Grants provide unrestricted, multi-year funding to arts organizations across Los Angeles County. These grants are designed to strengthen organizational infrastructure, support long-term planning, and build the financial resilience that allows arts organizations to grow with stability — and to endure.

“Los Angeles Children’s Chorus is deeply grateful to receive this extraordinary support from the Perenchio Foundation,” said Susan Miller Kotses, LACC Executive Director. “The fact that the Foundation expressed its confidence and trust in LACC through a gift of this size is monumental and a well-deserved honor for our LACC community, and especially for our Board of Directors and staff team. This funding will allow us to build capacity within our organization to help sustain LACC’s continued growth, positively impacting even more youth through our transformative choral music education program."

Perenchio Foundation CEO Stephania Ramirez states, “Permanence in the arts is not an accident. It is the result of organizations that have built real governance, real financial discipline, and real community trust — over years, sometimes decades — often without the kind of sustained investment that would make any of it easier. What we are investing in is not a program or a season. It is the infrastructure behind the work — the staffing, the systems, the reserves that allow an organization to absorb a hard year without losing what took twenty years to build. That is what multi-year unrestricted support makes possible, and it is the only kind of investment the Foundation believes is worth making.”

Established by the late A. Jerrold 'Jerry' Perenchio, the Perenchio Foundation believes the arts are essential to how communities see themselves, sustain themselves, and grow. The Foundation is committed to creating lasting impact in Los Angeles by investing in arts organizations that embody quality, accessibility, and permanence. Learn more at perenchiofoundation.org.

Los Angeles Children’s Chorus was formed in 1986, with just 50 young singers who were recruited for a local performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, a moving anti-war manifesto that prominently features the ethereal sound of a children’s choir to underscore the tragic impact of war on the young. Since that fateful engagement, LACC has never looked back, growing into a cultural powerhouse. LACC is now widely recognized as one of the world’s preeminent youth choirs, lauded as “hauntingly beautiful” (Los Angeles Times), and “one of the true artistic gems of Los Angeles” (Gustavo Dudamel). The Choir annually serves more than 500 children ages 6–18 from 40+ communities across Southern California through its eight choirs and two first experience classes, First Experiences in Singing and Next Experiences in Singing. More than 30% of choir members receive financial aid. Fernando Malvar-Ruiz is the Artistic Director.

For information on Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, please visit www.lachildrenschorus.org or call (626) 793-4231.