Clarity and Awe: Spotlight on Composer Alex Weiser

“Music has the power to stop us in our tracks and to give us moments we will never forget – moments of clarity, moments of awe.”

Alex Weiser is a Jewish American composer who grew up in New York City. He was a reluctant Hebrew school student, and his family attended a reform synagogue on high holidays, but in many ways his upbringing was secular. Weiser grew up listening to music with his father, an audiophile with a keen ear and love for music, and the younger Weiser gradually started to become a serious listener. He began playing the guitar in middle school, which spurred him to almost immediately begin writing music. Soon, his musical interests  broadened to include the blues, jazz, and some classical music.

At Stuyvesant High School, thanks to an ear-opening music appreciation class with Holly Hall and an AP Music Theory class with Joseph Tamosaitis, Weiser more fully discovered classical music. Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy, and others became new favorites. He then studied composition privately with Paul Alan Levi (a Jewish American composer) for the rest of his time in high school. Under Levi’s tutelage,  Weiser’s ears started to really open up. “Paul introduced me to Reich, Ligeti. Ives, Mahler, Josquin, Bartók, Schoenberg, Carter; he taught me about the use of motive, counterpoint, harmony, rhythms and polyrhythms and orchestration.” At the same time, Weiser took up the viola so he could play in the school orchestra, which he ended up conducting and for which he wrote  a handful of pieces. 

Weiser then continued his studies as an undergraduate at Yale University, studying composition and eagerly soaking up information. “I was taking extra classes to quench my thirst for more music and knowledge about music – 150% of a normal course load almost every semester. I was constantly listening to new CDs and going to every concert I could possibly make it to. I worked primarily with the undergraduate faculty members Michael Klingbeil and Kathryn Alexander, and I also had the great privilege of taking a number of courses at the Yale School of Music with composers Martin Bresnick, Chris Theofanidis, David Lang, and Ingram Marshall.”

During his time at Yale, Weiser was the president of IGIGI, Yale’s only undergraduate composers’ organization, and wrote music for many of the undergraduate orchestras, chamber music groups, and other organizations, as well as visiting ensembles such as the JACK quartet, Argento New Music Project, and Fifth House Ensemble.

After finishing his BA degree, Weiser spent nearly five years as the Director of Operations and Development at Music at the Anthology (MATA), an international festival of contemporary classical by young and emerging composers founded by Philip Glass, Lisa Bielawa, and Eleonor Sandresky in 1996. During that time Weiser studied composition with Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe at NYU, where he earned a Masters degree in Music Composition and Music Theory.

After working at MATA, Weiser joined the staff at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where he is the manager of public programs. “I absolutely love YIVO. The opportunity to really delve into and celebrate Jewish culture and history at YIVO with a religiously and politically diverse set of colleagues has been nothing short of inspiring for me.”

Discussing his musical influences Weiser has said,

“I really love the repetition, beautiful textures, and rigorous development of the music of Steve Reich, and in my own music I like to use that kind of clarity to create expectations that can be interacted with and not necessarily fulfilled.  At the same time, I love the sprawling, discursive, and achingly expressive world of Gustav Mahler’s music. I love the raw energy and power, as well as lyrical beauty that music can have, especially when it can be placed in a context where it is called into question in some way.”

“Music has the power to stop us in our tracks and to give us moments we will never forget-- moments of clarity, moments of awe. I try to write music that is patient, thought-provoking, viscerally moving, and dramatic -- rich and abstract, and yet lucid, accessible and very grounded.”

We will be featuring music by Alex Weiser in our upcoming Young Jewish American Composers concert on November 2nd.

Alex Weiser is YIVO’s Director of Public Programs.