Jose Iturbi Foundation

The José Iturbi Foundation is a small, founder-led family foundation (roughly $5.3M-$6.1M in assets) whose giving is driven by personal relationships around President/Founder Donelle Dadigan (also President of The Hollywood Museum) and board members James Ty Tavlan and Brooks Russell Tavlan — all four officers serve without compensation, consistent with an intimate, hands-on operating style rather than a staffed program office. The Foundation explicitly checks "preselected organizations only" on its Form 990 and does not accept unsolicited applications. Its grantee list shows extreme concentration: the Los Angeles Philharmonic (roughly $280,000 across four recorded gifts, over half of tracked giving), Pasadena Symphony Association ($75,000 across 3 grants), Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles's music program ($70,000 across 5 grants), and Santa Cecilia Orchestra ($50,000 across 5 grants) account for the large majority of the $504,000 in giving captured in the data. First-time applicants without an existing relationship should not expect a cold letter of inquiry to work; every grantee in the record appears to have been discovered through personal introduction — board or artistic-committee connections at LA Phil, Pasadena Symphony, or Santa Cecilia, or through LA's broader classical-music philanthropy circle (Hollywood Bowl patron events, UCLA music-school ties), are the realistic paths in. Once a relationship exists, the progression looks less like LOI-to-proposal-to-site-visit and more like a sponsor conversation escalating to concert underwriting and then recurring annual support — Santa Cecilia and Le Lycée Français each received grants across 3-5 separate years, evidence that repeat funding to trusted partners is the norm, not one-off gifts. Grant sizes cluster tightly outside the marquee relationships: the Foundation's own PF990 data shows a "typical grant" median of $10,000 and range of $5,000-$30,000, while flagship sponsorships (the $125,000 Hollywood Bowl "Rachmaninoff Under the Stars" gift in August 2025) go only to the LA Philharmonic. Individual musicians, not organizations, may have a more formal door: the José Iturbi International Music Competition (piano and voice, ages 17-35, $50,000 first prizes) is a named, promoted program, though its public cycle appears to have gone quiet since roughly 2010-2016. Any approach should frame the ask in Iturbi's own language of popularizing classical music, especially for young people, rather than generic arts-education framing.

Total assets stood at $5,327,937 in FY2023 per IRS filing data, with a more recent third-party estimate of $6.1M for FY2025 — a modest, slow-declining endowment (down from $5,886,861 in 2019) consistent with a foundation that spends on concert production faster than investment income replaces it (net investment income was just $76,306 in 2023 against $501,323 in total giving). Total giving has swung significantly with the pandemic: $153,637 in 2020 (a 990 program note explains the Foundation "could only make charitable contributions to orchestras and music schools due to pandemic"), recovering through $212,571 (2021) and $290,830 (2022) to $501,323 in 2023 — a more than 3x rebound in three years, now exceeding the prior decade's high points of $343,183 (2013) and $340,477 (2014). Note that "grants paid" (direct checks to grantees) is a smaller, lumpier figure than total giving — $0 in both 2022 and 2019, $107,500 in 2021, $191,500 in 2023 — because a large share of spending funds the Foundation's own concert productions rather than third-party grants; one recent year's breakdown reported $417,976 on sponsored concerts versus $90,500 in direct donations to orchestras and schools. Among the 25 tracked grants totaling $504,000 (average $20,160), the distribution is top-heavy: the Los Angeles Philharmonic alone accounts for roughly $280,000 (about 56% of the total) across four gifts, including a $125,000 Hollywood Bowl sponsorship. Excluding that flagship relationship, the "typical" grant is far smaller — the Foundation's own PF990 data pegs the standard range at $5,000-$30,000, a $10,000 median, and a $13,750 average. By recipient type, funding splits almost entirely between orchestras and performing ensembles (LA Philharmonic, Pasadena Symphony, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Vienna Opera Festival, The Opera Buffs) and music education (Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles's music department, Composers Conference, Sound of Children Cultural Program), with two small non-music outliers: $2,500 to Wespark Cancer Center for music therapy and $500 to the Smithsonian for historical archive preservation of Iturbi recordings. Geographically, 21 of 25 grants (84%) went to California organizations, almost all in the LA/Pasadena corridor; the only exceptions are Washington, DC (Smithsonian, $500) and Massachusetts (Composers Conference, $5,000).

Iturbi's asset base and annual giving are nearly identical to its closest peer, the Maestro Foundation — both are sub-$6M, unstaffed classical-music family foundations that close their doors to public applications, in sharp contrast to the far larger Colburn and Ralph M. Parsons foundations, which run professionalized programs making dozens to hundreds of grants a year (Parsons through an open online portal). Where Iturbi diverges from Maestro is its heavier reliance on marquee event sponsorship — underwriting its own concert productions — over Maestro's membership-driven model, and its extreme grantee concentration around the LA Philharmonic. For grant seekers, Iturbi and Maestro sit firmly in the "cultivate a relationship, do not submit a cold application" tier, while Colburn and especially Parsons are realistic targets for a traditional written application process.

The most recent confirmed activity is the Foundation's sponsorship of "Rachmaninoff Under the Stars" with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl on August 19, 2025, continuing a decades-long relationship with the orchestra; President Donelle Dadigan reiterated the Foundation's mission to "popularize classical music for all generations, especially young people — one note at a time." In 2023, the Foundation was involved in a Sony Classical partnership to reissue restored mid-century recordings of José and Amparo Iturbi, which Dadigan described as preserving his legacy "for listeners worldwide, now and for generations to come." No leadership changes were found — the same four uncompensated officers (Dadigan as President, James Ty Tavlan as VP/Treasurer, Brooks Russell Tavlan as Secretary, and Brian Lewis as Director) appear consistently across the Foundation's filing history. Notably, the Foundation's own press page has not been updated since 2016 despite this ongoing 2025 sponsorship activity — grant seekers should not rely on joseiturbifoundation.org's News section as a current activity log and should instead track LA Philharmonic/Hollywood Bowl press for the Foundation's latest visible giving. The José Iturbi International Music Competition, a signature program from 2007-2010 that distributed over $870,000 in prizes and more than $1.5M in scholarships since the Foundation's founding, has no confirmed 2024-2026 cycle in public search results, suggesting a shift in emphasis toward recurring flagship concert sponsorship and steady small grants over large public competitions. Financially, FY2023's $501,323 in total giving is the highest level recorded in over a decade, indicating the Foundation has fully emerged from its pandemic-era pullback.

Because the Foundation is preselected-only, the most important tip is to not treat it like a standard portal-and-deadline funder — there is no application_form_url, no grants_page_url, and no published deadline anywhere in its own materials or public filings. Lead with concrete classical-music programming, not generic arts-education language: cite José Iturbi's own words that "classical music should be a more recognizable part of everyone's entertainment," which the Foundation still uses as its guiding mission. Target the sub-niches it actually funds: orchestral and chamber concert underwriting, youth music education, opera, and — per the Wespark Cancer Center precedent — interdisciplinary programs like music therapy may find an easier opening than a generic operating-support ask. Emphasize Los Angeles/Pasadena locality, since 84% of tracked dollars stayed in California; an out-of-state organization needs an unusually strong Iturbi-legacy tie, as the Vienna Opera Festival and the Massachusetts-based Composers Conference apparently had, to break through. Approach via warm introduction rather than the Foundation's own contact channel: board or staff contacts at the LA Philharmonic, Pasadena Symphony Association, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, or Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles are the clearest documented paths, and Donelle Dadigan's other role as President of The Hollywood Museum is a secondary point of entry into LA's cultural-philanthropy network. Keep any request modestly scaled: $5,000-$30,000 is the realistic band for a new relationship (matching the Foundation's own $10,000 median typical grant); asking for a six-figure gift on a first approach is unrealistic without an LA Philharmonic-level, multi-year track record. If you are a solo musician — pianist or vocalist, age 17-35 — the José Iturbi International Music Competition, not the general grants program, is the intended door, though no active 2025-2026 cycle has been confirmed publicly. A common mistake would be spending significant time drafting a formal written LOI for a generic inbox; with no program staff and four uncompensated officers, decision-making is informal and personal-relationship-driven, so in-person engagement at LA classical-music events (Hollywood Bowl concerts, Pasadena Symphony galas) matters more than proposal polish.