Ronald Robboy and Alex Weiser visit with "The Shmooze" to talk about their collaboration on the performance of the music of "Shir Hashirim (The Song of Songs)," a 1911 operetta by Joseph Rumshinsky and Anshel Shor. "Shir Hashirim" is a musical comedy that features several interlocking love triangles, including an aging composer along with his children and their lovers and friends. Reconstructed from a variety of archival materials collected at YIVO, UCLA, and the Library of Congress, the operetta will be performed by students of the Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program.

Episode 360
December 10, 2023
Amherst, MA

The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center Podcast

Episode 0360: Shir Hashirim (The Song of Songs): A Yiddish Operetta

Alex Weiser visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his latest work, "in a dark blue night," consisting of two connected song cycles. The first, “in a dark blue night,” sets to music modernist Yiddish poetry about New York City at night, all written by Jewish immigrant poets at the turn of the 20th century. The second, “Coney Island Days,” transforms an oral history with his late grandmother, Irene Weiser, into a musical exploration of the time when Jews became Americans and the way that humble, individual stories can capture the sweeping breadth of history.

Episode 368
March 14, 2024
Amherst, MA

The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Episode 0368: in a dark blue night: two song cycles on Yiddish/Jewish New York

for none shall gaze upon the Father and live

Meredith Monk's "Double Fiesta" at Bang on A Can Festival Marathon Concert

https://soundcloud.com/longleash 
recorded live February 11, 2017
presented by Kettle Corn New Music  
at Scandinavia House 
New York, New York

BRONTAL SYMMETRY _(live 2.11.17)

Karl Larson performs Blue Inscription.
Recorded live 4.2.17 at Spectrum, New York City

BLUE INSCRIPTION

Our second episode of the Boom Boom Music Room!

Cantata Profana Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth and special guest Alex Weiser (Kettle Corn New Music, YIVO Institute) sit down to listen to some classic CP recordings from previous shows, and to talk about the story and the inspiration behind our upcoming program, featuring Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde at the YIVO Institute in NYC, Nov 30th. Every recording you hear is live from previous Cantata Profana shows! 
TICKETS: www.Yivo.org/mahler

Thanks to Jeff Rowell and Gleb Kanasevich for recording magic.

CP Podcast Ep 102: Das Lied von der Erde Nov 30, 2017

Lubavitcher Chorus conducted by Velvel Pasternak. Ovinu malkeinu,(Alter Rebbe)[undubbed version], recorded for Collectors Guild lp CGL 615, "Nichoach" Chabad Melodies: Songs of the Lubavitcher Chassidim, New York, 1960. From the Benedict Stambler Memorial Collection of Jewish Music, YIVO RG 1014.

Benefit mp3

Ovinu malkeinu

In a conversation with Alex Weiser, composer and the director of public programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, we learn about his debut album, "And All the Days Were Purple," and a new opera, "State of the Jews," a historical drama about Theodor Herzl.

Episode 0240
December 12, 2019
Yiddish Book Center
Amherst, Massachusetts

The Shmooze: The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Episode 0240: "Riffing with Alex Weiser"

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

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

Somewhere - Performed by the NYU Symphony Orchestra

Alex Weiser

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