Composer Alyssa Weinberg uses color, texture and gesture to channel big emotions, creating music that is “quite literally stunning” (Chicago Tribune). She is fascinated with perception and loves to play with form, subverting expectations to create surreal scenarios, often in dreamy, multidisciplinary productions.
Weinberg’s music has been performed by celebrated artists and ensembles around the world, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Diego Symphony, as well as Sandbox Percussion, yMusic, PUBLIQuartet, and the Aizuri Quartet. She has received commissions and awards from organizations including Chamber Music America, New Music USA, FringeArts and the Pennsylvania Ballet, Paris Dance Project, and in 2022 was awarded an Opera America Discovery Grant. She received Opera America's Grants for Women Composers: Commissioning Award in 2024 to support the development of her opera DRIFT, commissioned by Opera Saratoga.
A dedicated educator, Weinberg currently teaches at Peabody Conservatory, Mannes School of Music, and Juilliard Pre-college, and she is the Founding Director of the Composers Institute at the Lake George Music Festival. Weinberg holds a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University, as well as degrees from Vanderbilt University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music.
At MacDowell, Weinberg began composing Claude & Marcel, an opera written with librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, commissioned by West Edge Opera premiering in August 2027. Claude & Marcel tells the story of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, queer surrealist artists, lovers and life partners, who used their art to lead a resistance movement against Nazi occupation on the island of Jersey.
Portrait by Zoe Prinds-Flash
