INSIDE THE LA PHIL'S DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is more than an orchestra. Across venues including Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and The Ford, the organization produces performances, recordings, photography, and other creative work that collectively document an important part of Los Angeles's cultural history.
But managing that history presented a growing challenge.
Years of recordings, photographs, production documents, and artist materials were spread across departments and storage systems. Teams struggled with duplicate files, uncertainty about which versions were current, and inconsistent approval processes.
For an organization working closely with artists, those challenges went beyond operational inefficiency. Using the wrong photograph, overlooking an approval, or misunderstanding content rights could put valuable artist relationships at risk.
"We were seeing duplications. We were seeing a lack of knowing which version was what, a lack of approvals," explained Meredith Reese, Digital Asset Manager at the LA Phil.
The organization needed more than a place to store files. It needed a way to connect its archives with the people creating, managing, and using content every day.
The LA Phil implemented Orange Logic as its digital asset management platform, affectionately naming the system Clark.
The goal was to make Clark a shared resource across the organization, bringing together archival collections, active production assets, and the workflows surrounding them.
One of the LA Phil's first priorities was organizing its extensive collection of audio and video recordings.
The organization had recorded concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall for approximately 15 years, while its archives team was also digitizing older analog recordings.
Orange Logic brought these collections together, allowing teams to search across historic and contemporary performances.
Questions that once required extensive archival research became easier to investigate. Staff could explore how often the orchestra had performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, identify conductors, and locate relevant recordings.
The archive became more than a historical repository. It became a practical resource for everyday research, production, and storytelling.
The LA Phil's production environment is complex, involving multiple venues, orchestras, performance seasons, artist contracts, and logistical requirements.
The production and marketing teams recognized an opportunity to bring project management into the same environment as their digital assets.
With Orange Logic's project management capabilities, the organization could connect production planning and calendars with the content created throughout the performance lifecycle.
Approvals, artist negotiations, and logistical planning happen before a concert. Recordings, photography, and production documentation are generated during and after it.
Bringing those activities together helped the LA Phil establish a more connected process for managing performances and transferring valuable materials into its archives.
As Reese explained, when the teams saw project management integrated with asset management, they recognized how closely it reflected their existing lifecycle.
Rather than making the archives team responsible for every upload and metadata entry, Reese established a more distributed approach.
Individual departments could upload and tag their own content using a shared metadata structure.
That structure included descriptive information, administrative details, and embedded technical metadata. Training helped employees understand not only how to find assets, but also how to interpret restrictions, artist approvals, and copyright requirements.
The approach balanced archival discipline with practical usability.
Instead of requiring every asset to have a perfect metadata record before becoming useful, the priority was making content discoverable while continuously improving the collection.
One major milestone came when a longtime photographer handed over hard drives containing approximately 20 years of publicity photography, concert images, orchestra headshots, and staff photographs.
The migration brought roughly 500,000 assets into Clark.
Suddenly, employees had a substantial collection of relevant material to explore.
The migration demonstrated the value of centralized digital asset management in a tangible way. Teams could find photographs and historical materials that had previously been difficult to access.
At the time of Reese's interview, Clark held approximately 70 terabytes of digital content, with another 80 terabytes identified for eventual migration.
Video represented a significant portion of that volume, with individual productions capable of generating substantial amounts of new material.
Rather than retaining everything indiscriminately, the archives team applied deliberate collection and documentation practices to determine what should be preserved.
This allowed the organization to balance the demands of a growing digital collection with the responsibility of maintaining meaningful historical records.
For Reese, the clearest evidence of success was not simply how many assets had been migrated or how much storage the organization used.
It was whether employees naturally turned to Clark as part of their work.
Production teams referenced Clark for calendars. Staff used it to find photographs. Orchestra members accessed recordings. Marketing teams sourced content for creative projects, including a PBS documentary. Even HR looked to the platform for employee photographs.
"Orange Logic has become part of everybody's daily work," Reese said.
The system had evolved from an archival initiative into a shared resource supporting departments throughout the organization.
When the COVID-19 pandemic changed how the LA Phil operated, digital access became even more important.
With staff working remotely and performances shifting toward virtual experiences, Clark provided a central destination for accessing content outside traditional office and venue environments.
The investment in accessible digital collections helped the organization adapt to a period when physical access and in-person collaboration were limited.
The LA Phil's ambitions extend beyond internal content management.
Reese described a long-term goal of connecting the organization's digital collections more closely with its public-facing website.
Members of the public frequently contact the archives with questions about past performances, historic programs, and personal concert memories.
For Reese, those requests demonstrate why preserving cultural content matters.
A historic concert poster, a decades-old recording, or a photograph can tell a story that extends far beyond its original production.
By making those materials easier to discover, the LA Phil can help preserve the history of its performances, artists, venues, and the city itself.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic's experience demonstrates how digital asset management can connect cultural preservation with everyday operations.
By bringing together historic recordings, photography, production planning, and content governance, Orange Logic helped the organization make its collections more accessible and useful across departments.
The result is a digital archive that supports both the people creating the LA Phil's next performances and those preserving the history of everything that came before.
For Reese, that connection between preservation and access is fundamental to the role of an archivist: capturing information in a meaningful way and ensuring it can be understood and shared.