Composer Alyssa Weinberg is creating a vocal piece commissioned by Pittsburgh Camerata (which is celebrating its 50th year). The piece is in response to Kol Nidre, a central liturgy of Yom Kippur. She’s using words from my “Ashamnu for a Mindset of Privilege” – which is just astounding to me!
The piece will be performed for the first time on Wednesday, June 4 in a performance called “Speaking of Faith.” I’ll be there, and would love the company of any Fringe-dwellers in the area! Get tickets here.
About 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.