Abu Dhabi Plans Free Music School and Concert Hall for Young Players, Designed by Frank Gehry
Abu Dhabi is planning a new home for young musicians, and children as young as six can take part for free. The emirate's Department of Culture and Tourism, the government body that runs its arts and tourism programmes, announced Youth Orchestra Abu Dhabi on 26 October 2026 (PR Newswire).
The building was designed by the American architect Frank Gehry before his death. It will stand in the Mina Zayed port district, on the waterfront of the capital.
Inside, the complex will hold a 600-seat concert hall and 18 rehearsal rooms. Dezeen describes a two-tiered building with long, straight rooflines and tall glass walls broken up by white panels. Wood-lined staircases and balcony walkways run through the interior, and the top floor opens onto rooftop terraces.
The school side of the project is the part families are likely to notice first. Children aged six to nine will get free tuition and instruments, according to The National. The first intake will be 100 students, a group that starts together and moves through the programme as one class.
The opening is expected in January 2027. That is a little over two months after another Gehry project, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, is due to open to the public on Saadiyat Island on 11 December. The Guggenheim is a branch of the New York museum of the same name, built on the island that also hosts a cluster of cultural buildings. Construction is also under way in Abu Dhabi on Gehry's Dar al Funoon performing arts venue, according to Dezeen.
For a young musician, the practical questions are simple. Where will you practise, who will teach you, and what will it cost? The announcement answers the last of those for the youngest pupils: the lessons and the instruments are free. Details on how children will be selected, and how places will be allocated among the 100 students, have not yet been published.
