The Dancing Moonlight

for symphony orchestra

Music by Dai Wei

Video by Curtis Institute of Music

Commissioned by Curtis Symphony Orchestra and it is premiered at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Conner Gray Covington conducting.

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The Dancing Moonlight was inspired by my deep fascination with the traditional dance music of the Yi people in Yunnan, China. Blending its rhythmic vitality and timbral character with elements of jazz and rock, the piece expresses a simple but indescribable feeling: no matter where we are, who we are, or where we come from, we all look upon the same moon.

This was my first orchestral work, written during the Chinese New Year in 2017. At the time, my homesickness stood in quiet contrast to the festivity of the holiday season. Rather than writing a nostalgic or sorrowful piece, I wanted to respond to that emotional tension with movement, energy, and dance. In this way, the music becomes not only a reflection on distance and longing, but also a celebration of shared light, shared rhythm, and shared humanity.

Mandalas in the Rubbles

for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

Mandalas In The Rubble was originally commissioned by Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. This revised version is premiered in April 2019, at Intimacy of Creativity 2019 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

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Mandalas In The Rubble was inspired by a trip I took to Nepal. There, I was struck by the temple architecture, often built on concentric circles or squares that rise from a broad base into narrowing tiers. After the devastating 7.8 earthquake of April 25, 2015, many historic temples and monuments in the Kathmandu Valley were badly damaged or destroyed. Yet in places like Dharahara and Maju Dega Temple, the mandala-shaped foundations remained intact—as if mandalas were blooming from the rubble.

What moved me most was seeing Nepali people return each night to these ruined sites for worship, sitting among the debris with quiet faith, hope, and peace. Their resilience left a deep impression on me.

In this piece, I sought to create a free-flowing soundscape with a fragmented, sporadic texture that gradually evolves into a peaceful cohesion. The piece reflects how broken things can transform into strength and beauty without losing their essential nature.

Recent Projects

How the Stars Vanish...

for flute, clarinet, violin and cello

Performed by American Modern Ensemble

Commissioned by Hub New Music

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The title How the Stars Vanish… came from a phrase of a poem written by the Persian poet Rūmī. This piece is based on my observation and imagination of the stars. I think stars always try their best to be stable in their whole life. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it swells, suddenly collapses, and a very dense core will be left behind, along with the expanding nebula. Looking at stars sometimes can be a very personal thing. It doesn’t require this knowledge to create an intimate, poetic conversation between you and the stars. When it comes to dark, I look up at the sky. We are just a mote of dust floating among the vast and tranquil Milky Way. Suddenly, a shooting star glides down the sky, while Orion and Pegasus are silently sharing their stories. Some of the stars are coming towards us, while some of them are vanishing.

Honeycomb
for sinfonietta

Music by Dai Wei

Video by Four/Ten Media

HONEYCOMB is commissioned by Alarm Will Sound and it is premiered at the Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, New Jersey, Alan Pierson conducting.

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I first had the idea for this piece at the end of 2021, during a year when I was unexpectedly able to reunite with my family in China because of the pandemic travel restrictions. At the time, I did not realize there was a beehive hanging just outside my bedroom window. Honeybees were constantly coming and going, buzzing around from morning to night.

Later, I learned that when a honeybee returns to the hive, it passes nectar to another bee by regurgitating the liquid into the other bee’s mouth. This process is repeated again and again until the nectar is finally stored in the honeycomb. Looking at that large hive, I was struck by how those repeating hexagonal cells could become something so abundant, beautiful, and powerful.

The piece begins with an imagined “hexagonal unit,” which gradually expands through repetition into a kind of “honeycomb.” To me, this process reflects the way meaning is built over time: great moments are worth remembering, but so too are the small ones.