LACO Receives $2 Million Gift from Film Composer Jeff Beal and Wife Joan

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has received a $2 million gift from Joan and Jeff Beal to establish the Joan and Jeff Beal Fund for Living Composers, designated to commission new works from composers working in the entertainment industry, according to LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader.

“On behalf of the entire LACO organization, we are deeply grateful and inspired by this incredibly generous and unique gift from Joan and Jeff Beal,” says Cadwallader. “The Joan and Jeff Beal Fund for Living Composers will not only provide LACO patrons in Los Angeles with the thrill of being among the first to discover the classical works from established and emerging composers actively working in the entertainment industry, but these newly commissioned pieces will then become available for chamber orchestras and audiences across the globe to experience for generations to come, as well.”

Cadwallader adds that “the Beal’s gift also reflects LACO’s deep roots within the Hollywood community. LACO was founded in 1968 as an artistic outlet for the recording industry’s most gifted musicians, enabling conservatory-trained players to balance studio work and teaching with pure artistic collaboration at the highest level.” 

The Beals say, “Having spent 30 years living and working in LA, we recognize the musicians of LACO are among the world’s finest - playing for blockbusters, games, and series by day, Vivaldi and Beethoven at night. Los Angeles is also home to many of the world's most brilliant and prolific composers, whose music reaches audiences worldwide. Only in Los Angeles could a meaningful bridge of these two worlds happen in such a dynamic way. We hope our gift will inspire many wonderful collaborations and concert experiences, which will enrich, sustain, and expand LACO as a pioneer in a new era of music for the concert stage.”

The first two of LACO’s inaugural Beal Fund commissioned composers have been announced. They include Pulitzer Prize-winning and Emmy- and Grammy-nominated composer Michael Abels, whose work will be premiered by LACO during the 2025/26 season, and award-winning and best-selling video game Irish composer and conductor Eímear Noone, whose LACO-commissioned piece will premiere on the orchestra’s 2026/27 season. 

Abels is best-known for his scores for the Oscar-winning film Get Out and Jordan Peele’s Us, for which Abels won the World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, an Image Award nomination, and multiple critics awards. The hip-hop influenced score for US was short-listed for the Oscar and was even named “Score of the Decade” by online publication The Wrap. With Rhiannon Giddens Abels also composed the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar.

Noone, a Los Angeles/Dublin-based conductor and award-winning composer, is one of the world’s premier composers of games scores. Her enduring soundscapes on World of Warcraft have reached over 100 million people, inspiring players to invent and build new worlds for nearly fifteen years. She has garnered multiple industry accolades for her composition portfolio of 28 film and video-game titles, including the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Video Game Score. She has also worked on film scores for directors such as Gus Van Sant and Joe Dante, orchestrating for Oscar-nominee Javier Navarrette (composer of Pan’s Labyrinth) to create haunting music for thrillers Mirrors and The Hole.