2. Night Walk - Text by Laura Marris - Performed by Mellissa Hughes and Lisa Moore

3. Marks - Text by Laura Marris - Performed by Mellissa Hughes and Lisa Moore

1. The Door - Text by Laura Marris - Performed by Mellissa Hughes and Lisa Moore

People often criticize Mendelssohn for writing too many notes, forcing his performers to saw away for minutes at end in high drama; the same criticism is often leveled at some of the so-called minimalist composers. Like Mendelssohn's work, my own Octet is full of broad gesture, rich textures and narrative sweep, though here combined with a maximalist-minimalist's love of activity, counterpoint, and speed. It also has lots of notes. Central to the work's drama is the combination of a swirling, chromatic flurry with clarion horn calls that pierce the mystery of darkness and, perhaps, herald something more powerful, poignant, and clear.

Octet for fl(+pic), cl, perc, pno, vln, vla, vc, db

Written for the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival 2014 
at MASS MoCA, conducted by Brad Lubman and played by Bang on a Can Fellows

Ascension

Octet by Alex Weiser
Live at MASS MoCA 8/1/14
Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival

Matt Evans
Melanie Walters
Chuck Furlong
Jacob Abela
McKenzie Camp
Sarah Goldfeather
Karoline Hegge
Zan Berry
Tristan Kasten-Krause

People often criticize Mendelssohn for writing too many notes, forcing his performers to saw away for minutes at end in high drama; the same criticism is often leveled at some of the so-called minimalist composers. Like Mendelssohn's work, my own Octet is full of broad gesture, rich textures and narrative sweep, though here combined with a maximalist-minimalist's love of activity, counterpoint, and speed. It also has lots of notes. Central to the work's drama is the combination of a swirling, chromatic flurry with clarion horn calls that pierce the mystery of darkness and, perhaps, herald something more powerful, poignant, and clear.

Octet - Performed by Bang on a Can Fellows Summer 2014

Text by Laura Marris

Travelers

Like the leaves paired with their shadows
like the leaves and their falling shadows
they walk on the road.
 
We see them in the evening
walking together
walking with lowered eyes.
 
We don’t know what they look for
only that they are hungry
only that in the hills
the trees have fallen
where once there was a house.
 
They talk under the trees,
between the shadows of birches.
Sometimes, we see their fires—
      
     In the night,      
     Who holds the guitar?
     Whose feet are wrapped in cloth?
     Who has walked the longest,
     how many steps, vying with the darkness,
     the tunnel of the road?
     Who has bathed his hands in the running stream?
     And tell us, whose is the voice?



Travelers - Yale Glee Club Chamber Singers, Miles Canaday, text by Laura Marris

In Quake I tried to create a musical landscape that feels on the brink of exploding. Intricate rhythms tightly bind the instruments to one another as they pull apart and erupt into music, raucous and resonant with open strings.

Quake - Performed by JACK Quartet

When I write music I am often trying to create a special place that the listeners and performers can go to. Some place that brings together questions I have and things that I am curious about. In Somewhere I am searching for a place that brings together some of my favorite music. Sound travels throughout the orchestra as the music pulses with changing rhythms. Impassioned melodies begin but can’t quite find their footing. The orchestra rumbles plaintively. Throughout the piece different textures are explored and juxtaposed and by the end my hope is that through searching for the place where these elements and ideas can coexist, we realize that we have been there all along.

Somewhere - Performed by the NYU Symphony Orchestra

The shimmering frozen landscapes of winter can give us pause. They can make us stop and contemplate life's transience and beauty. Winter Prayer is a meditation on these feelings. The sounds of bells are heard above undulating, slowly moving textures painting a frozen wintery landscape from which elegiac lyrical lines sprout.

Winter Prayer - Performed by the Yale Concert Band

Broad gestures and rich textures are hallmarks of the “compelling” (The New York Times), “deliciously wistful” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “personal, expressive, and bold,” (I Care If You Listen) music of composer Alex Weiser. Born and raised in New York City, Weiser creates acutely cosmopolitan music combining a deeply felt historical perspective with a vibrant forward-looking creativity. Weiser’s debut album and all the days were purple, was named a 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Music. Released by Cantaloupe Music in April 2019, the album includes songs in Yiddish and English and has been praised as “ravishing” (The New Yorker), “reverent and magical... devastatingly beautiful,” (American Record Guide), “gorgeous” (Tablet Magazine), “utterly original and exquisitely unsettling... sweeping, bewitching, divinely dissonant... pitch-perfect.” (In Geveb).

Weiser recently completed an opera with librettist Ben Kaplan called State of the Jews. Hailed as “stunning, heavenly, marvelous” by Israeli National Public Radio, the opera is based on the life of Theodor Herzl and juxtaposes a historical narrative focusing on the last year of his life, with the more intimate story of Theodor’s conflicted relationship with his wife, Julie Herzl, and the toll his political views and activities took on their family life. Developed as a part of a two-year fellowship with American Opera Projects, the LABA fellowship of the 14th Street Y, a Roulette residency, and with support from the ConEd Exploring the Metropolis Composer Residency program, the opera received a series of preview performances at the 14th Street Y in December 2019 and awaits a premiere production.

For more information, visit www.AlexWeiser.com

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