“I want to reach kids,” said Executive Director Robert Santelli, who has worked at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. “If they’re hip-hop fans, I want them to know that there’s a great conductor up the street from us” at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The museum will open with the politically slanted exhibit “Songs of Conscience, Sounds of Freedom,” which pairs cultural moments with music. The exhibit will be on display for 12 months, and Viste said he’s working with the Smithsonian and the other major music museums for rotating presentations.

The price tag for the Grammy Museum was $34 million, Santelli said. Much of the funding, he added, came courtesy of Denver-based AEG. The city of Los Angeles kicked in about $12 million in community redevelopment funds, Santelli said, and he added that a host of corporate sponsorships and private donations covered nearly all the costs.

The sponsorships, Santelli said, allow the museum to operate with a relatively low admission cost.

“A lot of the programs that we’re going to do are going to be very nominal,” Santelli added, “I was very lucky to convince people that this museum ought not to be elitist.” Nor will winning a Grammy be a prerequisite, which is good news for artists who have yet to earn a gilded gramophone.

“This is everything that gets up to the Grammys. This is all the music behind the Grammys,” Viste said.