Alyssa Weinberg

Composer Alyssa Weinberg, who uses color, texture, and gesture to channel big emotions, fascinated with perception and loves to play with form, subverting expectations to create surreal scenarios, often in dreamy, multidisciplinary productions. 

Weinberg’s 2023-24 season features the world premiere of her monodrama ISOLA, a prismatic meditation on time, mental health, and isolation, written in collaboration with poet J. Mae Barizo and presented by Long Beach Opera. Weinberg was awarded a 2022 Opera America discovery grant, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, to facilitate the development of Drift, a new opera with collaborator Barizo that touches on themes of motherhood, migration, and climate change. Weinberg’s time to stretch, commissioned for the inaugural celebration of the Paris Dance Project founded by Benjamin Millepied, was recently premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris with dancer/choreographer Mellina Boubetra and violinist Diego Tosi in collaboration with Ensemble Intercontemporain. 

Weinberg’s music has been performed by artists and ensembles worldwide including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and New Jersey Symphony Orchestra as well as So Percussion, yMusic, PUBLIQuartet, and the Aizuri Quartet. She has received commissions and awards from organizations including Chamber Music America, Copland House, New Music USA, FringeArts, the Pennsylvania Ballet, Barnes Foundation, and Curtis Institute of Music. Her percussion music has been celebrated for its inventive use of color and innovative performance techniques, most notably for her prepared vibraphone duo Table Talk, which has received hundreds of performances across the globe. 

A dedicated educator, Weinberg teaches at Peabody Conservatory, Mannes School of Music, and Juilliard Pre-College. She is the founding director of the Composers Institute at the Lake George Music Festival, a summer program that centers mentorship and community alongside the craft of composition. 

Alyssa Weinberg holds a PhD in composition from Princeton University as well as degrees from Vanderbilt University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music.