Composer Alyssa Weinberg (b. 1988) 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 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 recently 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, touching on themes of motherhood, migration and climate change. Her work 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 celebrated artists and ensembles around the world, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and the 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 and the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Barnes Foundation, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Weinberg’s 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 currently 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, now in its fifth season, 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.