Luna Composition Lab and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra are proud to announce the first members of the new LACO/Luna Lab partnership. The 2019/20 Luna Lab with LACO members range in age from 16 to 18 and hail from all over Southern California. They are: Anya Lagman (age 18), Chloe Villamayor (age 17), and Emily Webster-Zuber (age 16).

Luna Lab provides mentorship and performance opportunities to young composers who are female-identifying, non-binary or gender non-conforming.

Meet the participants

Anya Lagman is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles.

Anya Lagman

Anya Lagman is a composer and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles.

Originally from Manila, Philippines, she is currently a freshman composition student at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. She has studied with Andrew Norman and Veronika Krausas and is interested in discovering her voice in Los Angeles’ eclectic environment. She is currently interested in symbolism and how its influence is integrated in visual arts, literature and music.

Chloe Villamayor is a composer, violinist, songwriter, and vocalist from Santa Clarita.

Chloe Villamayor

Chloe Villamayor is a composer, violinist, songwriter, and vocalist from Santa Clarita, California whose works are centered around the belief that music is not only a reflection of the world but also a tool to heal those in it.

A classically trained violinist, she has performed with the California All-State Junior High School and High School Orchestras and attended the Luzerne Music Center Senior Session. She began writing music at the age of thirteen, through the California Institute of the Arts Community Arts Partnership Saturday Music Program, where she studied composition and improvisation, and discovered her love for music beyond the classical genre. Chloe studies composition, violin and voice at The Buckley School. In addition to composing, Chloe currently sings and writes in her math-rock band, Alive.Multicolored, and is a member of the Santa Clarita Valley Youth Orchestra’s Novae Sinfonia.

Emily Webster-Zuber is a pianist and composer and native to Los Angeles.

Emily Webster-Zuber

Emily Webster-Zuber is a pianist and composer and native to Los Angeles, California.

She began classical piano at the Colburn School in 2009 and has studied privately outside of Colburn since 2018. Emily has taken composition with Ian Krouse since 2017. As a participant in Salastina Music Society’s  composition and performance program – Sounds Promising – several of her chamber works have been or will be premiered in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 season. Emily is also a 2019-20 fellow in the LA Phil Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program, where her works will be played by the Lyris Quartet, the American Youth Symphony, and LAPhil musicians. Emily is co-founder of Musical Traces, an organization dedicated to the development of musicians (musicaltraces.com).

About Luna Composition Lab

Luna Composition Lab addresses the gender gap in the field of classical music by inspiring young self-identifying female, nonbinary and gender non-conforming individuals to compose. Founded in 2016 by composers Ellen Reid and Missy Mazzoli with NYC’s Kaufman Music Center, Luna Composition Lab provides mentorship and performance opportunities to girls and young women from eighth grade through college freshmen.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is proud to partner with Luna Lab on Luna Lab with LACO, which will provide mentorship and performance opportunities to young female-identifying composers from Southern California.

Luna Composition Lab was nominated for the 2019 Classical:NEXT Innovation Award. The program has garnered attention from The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Forbes and The Washington Post.

Learn more about Luna Lab at https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/ftm/luna-lab/.