With a new long-term lease and $1.5 million gift in hand, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute has announced a campaign to renovate and restore its historic home at Saint Patrick Hall near Rittenhouse Square.
The group, which runs the youth orchestra and other music programs, has operated in the building at 20th and Locust Sts. since 1999. Last year, PYOMI signed a deal with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, owner of the building, to keep the music program there through 2050, giving leaders the confidence to undertake an interior renovation and exterior restoration project.
The campaign’s goal is $4.9 million, which is “by far” the most ambitious fundraising drive the organization has ever undertaken, says Louis Scaglione, president, CEO and music director of PYOMI.
The long-term security in the building “allows us to do the type of fundraising required to make the improvements we need on the space,” said Scaglione. After receiving a $1.5 million bequest from the Walter R. Garrison Foundation and other donations, “we are now in a position to really launch the more public phase of this.”
Almost $2 million is raised so far, including $195,000 from the William Penn Foundation, and Scaglione said he expects it to take six to nine months to raise the rest.
Saint Patrick Hall contains a first floor auditorium in which large ensembles like the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra rehearses, and the space can host chamber music and solo recital concerts. The auditorium will be renovated, as will classrooms and other spaces. Other aspects of the building will be upgraded, such as installation of an ADA-compliant exterior entrance.
Some projects are done, while others will be phased in as money is raised, said Scaglione, including restoration of the brick facade, as roof, windows and doors.
The new lease with the archdiocese gives PYOMI the right of first refusal in the event the 17,000-square-foot building is put up for sale, Scaglione said.
The gift from the Walter R. Garrison Foundation is the youth orchestra’s largest ever.
Garrison and his wife, Jayne, were friends of Scaglione’s, and when Walter Garrison died in 2019, the money in his foundation was to be disbursed within five years. PYOMI was one of the groups to apply for and receive money.
PYOMI’s leased spaces within Saint Patrick Hall have collectively taken the name the Walter R. Garrison Center at the PYO Music Institute.
Garrison was CEO of CDI Corporation and founder of the Pennsylvania Institute of Technology in Media. The Garrison Foundation also gave a $1 million gift to Philadelphia arts education organization Musicopia, the group announced in 2025.
“He was very interested in educational opportunities for people from all walks of life,” said Scaglione, and he and his wife “always had a great connection to music and the arts.”
In making the case for the importance of the facility, Scaglione says PYOMI often opens it up to other groups. The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has rehearsed there, as has Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra.
Some of the spaces are being used by Philadelphia Orchestra musicians for private lessons, he said, and the PYOMI has a new relationship with Settlement Music School that provides chamber music coaching to youth orchestra students.
The planned building improvements are part of an effort to make the center even more widely used.
“We really want it to be a hub for music education,” said Scaglione.