Alex Weiser is an American composer of contemporary classical music.
Weiser was born in New York City [1] to a Jewish family. He attended Stuyvesant High School [2] and Yale University, [3] and received a master's degree in Music Theory and Composition from New York University. He studied with Paul Alan Levi, [2] Martin Bresnick, [4] Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe among others. [5]
Weiser's debut album, and all the days were purple, was released by Cantaloupe Music in April 2019, [6] and was named a 2020 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music. [7] The album features singer Eliza Bagg singing songs set to poetry in Yiddish and English by poets including Anna Margolin, Rachel Korn, Abraham Sutzkever, Emily Dickinson, and William Carlos Williams. [8] Probing contemporary Jewish identity, the album grew out of Weiser's work as the Director of Public Programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. [9]
Other of Weiser's works explore Jewish themes as well including three operas: State of the Jews, which is a historical drama about Theodor Herzl, [10] The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language, a chamber opera about Yudel Mark, Max Weinreich, and the famous unfinished multi-volume Yiddish dictionary, [11] and Tevye's Daughters, an opera based on the Sholem Aleichem story Shprintse. [12] Other works exploring Jewish themes include after shir hashirim for chamber orchestra which takes its inspiration from the biblical Song of Songs. [13]
Common themes in Weiser's work also include death and transience as exemplified by his work Three Epitaphs. [14] Other major works have included shimmer for eight spatially arrayed cellos written for and recorded by Ashley Bathgate as a companion piece to Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint, [15] and water hollows stone for piano four hands, written for HOCKET. [1]
In addition to his work as a composer and at YIVO, Weiser is co-founder and artistic director of Kettle Corn New Music, [16] and worked for about five years as the Director of Operations and Development at the MATA Festival. [17]
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Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish is primarily written in the Hebrew alphabet.
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted into a prize: "For a distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year."
Julia Wolfe is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock". Her work Anthracite Fields, an oratorio for chorus and instruments, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. She has also received the Herb Alpert Award (2015) and was named a MacArthur Fellow (2016).
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