Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Appoints New Sound Investment Composer

Chinese composer Dai Wei will step into the role

Established in 2001, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Sound Investment program provides the opportunity for audience members to invest in the commissioning of new works for chamber orchestra. Audience members who donate to the project get to meet with the selected composer and track the progress of the new piece as it emerges.

Chinese composer Dai Wei has been appointed as the Sound Investment Composer for the 2024/25 season, and will write a new work specifically for LACO. Its premiere will be conducted by LACO Music Director Jaime Martín in the final orchestral program of the season, which takes place on May 10, 2025 at Glendale’s Alex Theatre, and May 11, 2025 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills.

Wei is no stranger to LACO audiences: in 2023, she was featured as the experimental vocalist in a LACO performance of her work Invisible Portals. Co-commissioned by LACO and the American Composers' Orchestra, the work drew from the sound-world of performers in Tibet and China's Yunan province.

Dai Wei's music traverses spaces between East and West, classical and pop, electronic and acoustic, and innovation and tradition. Recent and upcoming works include a multimedia work commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and pipa virtuoso Wu Man for their 50th Anniversary Celebration, two chamber orchestra pieces for the Albany Symphony, and a multichannel vocal and string quartet piece for the Ying Quartet.

Composers who have previously held the Sound Investment position include Matthew Aucoin, Andrew Norman, Kevin Puts, and Sarah Gibson.