Dallas Symphony Orchestra Appoints New Composer-In-Residence

Composer Sophia Jani will take on the two-year position beginning in the 2023/24 season

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra's (DSO) Composer-in-Residence position is a two-year appointment that brings contemporary composers to Dallas to work with the orchestra and Music Director Fabio Luisi, to program works with chamber ensembles, and to work with Dallas-based student composers. The position also includes the commission of a new work that will be premiered by the DSO during the tenure.

The DSO will perform Sophia Jani’s Flare in February 2024 with Luisi leading the orchestra, and they will present the European premiere of the work in Munich on the upcoming June 2024 European tour. In February 2025, the DSO will give the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Jani.

“I first heard Sophia Jani’s work as part of the 2022 Women in Classical Music Symposium,” said Luisi. “Angélica Negrón programmed a chamber work as part of the event, and it led me to learn more about her style and sound for larger ensemble. I am delighted to welcome her to the Dallas Symphony, and I look forward to working with her and performing her works.”

Born in 1989 in Germany, Sophia Jani writes poetically minimalist works. Her music has recently been performed by the New Jersey Symphony, the Munich Symphony, Bang on a Can, musicians of the Dallas Symphony, the Goldmund Quartet, vocal sextet Sjaella and pianist Eunbi Kim among others. Her debut album of chamber works, 2022’s Music as a mirror, received a nomination for the German Classical Music Prize Opus Klassik.

She is also one of the founders and artistic directors of Feet Become Ears, which is a platform that commissions, presents, and celebrates contemporary chamber music.

A graduate of the University of Augsburg, the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, and the Yale University School of Music where she studied with Martin Bresnick and David Lang, Jani is the 2023 musical Artist in Residence at the Arvo Pärt Centre and the recipient of the APC residency scholarship.

“I am honored to join the DSO in this position, and I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Maestro Luisi and the orchestra,” said Jani. “The DSO has a wonderful history of supporting contemporary music and composers, and I am thrilled to partner with the organization.”

Recent Composers-in-Residence at the DSO include American composer Julia Wolfe and Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negrón.