LA Chamber Orch Appoints Dai Wei 2024-25 Sound Investment Composer

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) and Music Director Jaime Martín have announced the appointment of Dai Wei as the orchestra’s 2024-25 Sound Investment Composer. The Chinese-born composer known for filtering musical traditions through her experimental lens has been hailed as “an audience favorite” who brings “disparate (musical) strands together” (BachTrack). Sound Investment is a groundbreaking program LACO established in 2001 that engages audience members in developing new works to expand the chamber orchestra canon.

In this creative capacity, Wei will compose a new work specifically geared to LACO with Martín conducting its world premiere on the final orchestral program of the season, May 10, at Glendale’s Alex Theatre, and May 11, 2025, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. Her work will be paired with Beethoven’s towering Violin Concerto in D major, featuring Franco-Serbian violin sensation Nemanja Radulović, and unsung composer Louise Farrenc’s symphonic triumph, Symphony No. 3 in G minor.

Martín says, “LACO is pleased to welcome Dai Wei as LACO’s 2024-25 Sound Investment Composer. We are excited to help foster her fresh and creative approach to music and look forward to premiering her new work next spring.”

LACO’s Sound Investment program is supported by members who contribute a modest $250, $500, or at a sponsorship giving level towards the commissioning of a new piece. In return, investors are invited to a series of intimate salons during the season where they meet the composer, hear excerpts of the score-in-progress and attend a full orchestral rehearsal of the completed work. Also among their wealth of returns: sponsors’ names and a thank you to the Sound Investment community are published and appears in perpetuity on the dedication page of the printed score. Along the way, Sound Investment members gain an insider’s view of the creative process through lively and thought-provoking conversations with the composer.

Wei joins a prestigious group of composers whose work has been brought to life by Sound Investment over the years, including Marc Lowenstein, Shelley Washington, Peter S. Shin, Juan Pablo Contreras, Sarah Gibson, Ellen Reed, Julia Adolphe, Matthew Aucoin, Ted Hearne, Hannah Lash, Andrew Norman, Timo Andres, Derek Bermel, George Tsontakis, Christopher Theofanidis, Kevin Puts, Gernot Wolfgang, Uri Caine, Donald Crockett, John Steinmetz, and Kenneth Frazelle.

Wei, who is also an experimental vocalist and Khoomei throat singer, mesmerized LACO audiences last October when she was featured with the orchestra on the highly anticipated West Coast premiere of her poignant work Invisible Portals under Martín’s baton. The work, co-commissioned by LACO and the American Composer’s Orchestra, was inspired by her collaborations with local performers and musicians in Tibet and Yunnan province.

For information about LACO and Sound Investment, please visit www.laco.org or call 213 221 3920.