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.

This season, she presents Pieces of Light, a collaborative album with cellist Gabriel Cabezas, inspired by sensory manipulation and light as an artistic medium. She was awarded a 2022 Opera America Discovery Grant, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, to facilitate the development of Drift, a new opera written in collaboration with librettist J. Mae Barizo. Recently, the pair created ISOLA, a prismatic monodrama about time, mental health, and isolation.

Alyssa’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 Eighth Blackbird, So Percussion, yMusic, and the Aizuri Quartet. She has received commissions and awards from organizations including Chamber Music America, FringeArts and the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Barnes Foundation, and the Curtis Institute of Music.

A dedicated educator, Alyssa currently teaches at Montclair State University, Mannes School of Music and The Juilliard School Pre-college. She is the Founding Director of the Composers Institute at the Lake George Music Festival, a summer program, now in its third season, that centers mentorship and community alongside the craft of composition.

Alyssa 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.