stefan weisman
bio       compositions       listen       news & events       PRESS       contact     more

RESTLESS LEGS:

New York Times (12/23/07 - Year End Retrospective), Allan Kozinn:
     "The Sound of the New Is Heard All Over"  New music is always plentiful in New York, if you look
     beyond the New York Philharmonic and the two big opera companies...Bang on a Can’s annual
     People’s Commissioning Fund concert in March...offered works by Stefan Weisman, Lukas Ligeti and
     Joshua Penman that touched on everything from Pink Floyd trippiness to Latin and African drumming.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

New York Times (03/03/07 - Concert Review), Allan Kozinn:
     Mr. Weisman’s “Restless Legs”...is built around a harmonically all but static ostinato in the piano,
     bass, cello and percussion, against which Mark Stewart’s electric guitar line had a trippy, embryonic
     Pink Floyd quality at first, and eventually seemed to glance at Carlos Santana’s Latin-jazz synthesis,
     and toward the end at the atmospheric style of the Norwegian jazz guitarist Terje Rypdal. There was
     a whole lotta fusion going on...
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

New York Times (02/23/07 - Preview), Anne Midgette:
     Bang on a Can’s annual [People's Commissioning Fund] concert can be counted on to
     generate electricity and excitement...the three hot young composers [are] Lukas Ligeti,
     Joshua Penman and Stefan Weisman...
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

DARKLING:

New York Times, Anthony Tommasini:
     With a cast of 13 singers and actors, the Flux String Quartet and many taped elements of speech
     and sound, "Darkling" combines musical theater, opera, movement, pantomime, lighting effects,
     video projections and language...Mr. Weisman's score...is personal, moody and skillfully wrought.
     There are echoes of Shostakovich, somber Minimalist riffs, ruminative hints of Jewish folk music
     and a poignant aria for the young bride (the mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn).  The score is most
     compelling when the composer takes risks, the harmonic language becomes astringent and a raw,
     fitful quality erupts.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Powiat Gnieznienski (Poland), Agnieszka Rzempa:
     This unusual, innovative piece was the main attraction of "Jewish Culture Day," sponsored by the city
     of Gniezno [Poland]...The unique use of language, film and music were highly effective, and the performance
     received great applause as well as a standing ovation from the audience...The theatrical power of "Darkling"
     underscores how quickly catastrophic events can destroy that which took many years to build. "Darkling"
     also movingly revives the memory of the Holocaust tragedy and reminds us of the dangers that we face in
     the present where terrorism is a constant threat.

Night After Night, Steve Smith: 
     Stefan Weisman's dark, elusive score is...shot through with an old-world melancholy...The composer
     took full advantage of his operatic principals -- soprano Jody Scheinbaum, mezzo Hai-Ting Chinn, tenor
     Jon Garrison and bass-baritone Mark Uhlemann -- each of whom was afforded and opportunity to stand
     out...Garrison's impassioned solo number, performed in beard and gown, summoned thoughts of Halévy's
     tortured Elezar....Productions like this remind you that all too much light is cast upon the Met and City
     Opera -- and even San Francisco and Houston -- to define what new opera is, or might be. Let Darkling
     serve as a reminder that opera can also be what and where it is found. This is a profound, provocative
     piece of musical theater -- one that I hope will occasion a great many opera lovers to stray from habitual paths.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Opera Now, Heidi Waleson:
      Stefan Weisman's instrumental score, played by the Flux Quartet, had the bleak urgency of Shostakovich
     crossed with Jewish liturgical idioms…The power of Darkling is in its sophisticated execution; but it is an
     exercise of remembrance above all.

Time Out New York (Starred Review), Lisa Quintela:
     Thomas Hardy's mournful poem "The Darkling Thrush"...is colorfully set to music for the final song
     and grafted onto measures in the rest of Stefan Weisman's expressionistic score...Speech mingles
     with live singing, subtitles and projected film to create a sense of chaos, helplessness and anomie
     ...Opera snobs and novices alike won't regret wondering downtown for more-daring fare.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

The Poetry Foundation, John Freeman:
     For a long time, poetic opera was the zipper boot of American arts and letters—an embarrassing
     reminder that poetry, like footwear, once thought it could be two things at once. But that ’70s
     feeling appears to be coming back: Dana Gioia, Anne Carson, and Glyn Maxwell have all written
     librettos of late. None of these works, however, approach the ambition of American Opera Projects’
     recent adaptation of Anna Rabinowitz’s 2001 volume, Darkling…To continue the footwear metaphor,
     this is a Reebok bump with a GPS device attached to the laces…At one point the story is told with the
     conventions of an old black-and-white movie…But just when we become wedded to this narrative...
     it fractures and elegantly reassembles itself…Out of this fog emerges the performance’s powerful
     portrayal of the march to the Final Solution…[The baritone] aria…about wearing the nightmare of
     this horror like an insufficient coat during the cold, is worth the price of admission and then some.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

 Opera Today, Megan Jenkins: 
     Recently at the East Thirteenth Street Theatre AOP presented Darkling, a new opera that is so multi-
     layered it defies description…In 80 minutes of intense visual and aural stimulation, Darkling achieves
     moments of powerful emotion.  At times I felt moved to tears…Bravo to AOP for supporting such a
     controversial and ultimately important work, and to the creative minds that fitted it all together in a
     thought-provoking way.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Sequenza21, Jeffrey Sackmann:
     Excellent and thought-provoking, especially in [its] implications for the opera form...Weisman's text-
     setting was skillful, and I suspect a second listening would reveal much more in it.

Gothamist.com (DARKLING is the "Pick of the Week"), Mallory Jensen:
     The Gothamist pick of the week is Darkling...It sounds dark, complicated, and intense, and we suspect
     that regardless of your level of interest in either theater or opera, you'll be stunned by it, in a good way.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

New York Resident Magazine, Alan Lockwood: 
     Acute in its musical reach and dead smart as theater, American Opera Projects’ Darkling…courses
     with charged generosity…Taut arias recall Schoenberg’s monodramas and Bartok’s hard-hitting
     Bluebeard’s Castle…Stefan Weisman’s score, played by the Flux Quartet, orbits near Shostakovich’s
     gripping string quartet cycle then gleans wafting minimalism.

Show Business Weekly, Carrie Jones:
     American Opera Projects presents Darkling, a rich opera about a wispy, charged story of immigrant
     woes and the power of memory....Eerie and effective...the entire 13-member cast evokes a generation
     of lost souls...The songs themselves are sung with conviction.

TheaterScene.net, Tuomas Hil: 
     [Conductor Brian] DeMaris's skillful phrasing supported the singers and quite miraculously he
     managed to conquer the dry accoustics of the black box theater. Tenor Jon Garrison delivered one
     of the highlights of the evening with gloriously voice effortlessly filling the space...Hai-Ting Chinn's
     mezzo-soprano was enchanting...The internal structure of the piece suggested a staged oratory
     and the production designs were there to support that approach...
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

The New York Sun, Gary Shapiro:
     Vacancy, displacent, and separation are major themes of Ms. Rabinowitz's poem, which has been set
     to music by Stefan Weisman in Darkling...In one particularly haunting part...the upbeat Passover song
     "Dayenu" ("Enough") [is transormed] into a dark refrain of Nazi atrocity.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

The Jewish Week, George Robinson:
     More than most operas..."Darkling" is a total theater experience, with not only music and singing but
     also video, projected images and text—an attempt to find a way to gather and save [the Holocaust's]
     shards and fragments.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Click to read about "Darkling" as featured in a March 2008 Scene4 Article by Karren Alenier


EAR DEPARTMENT: 

Time Out New York, Molly Sheridan:
     The one-night-only crush of the concert calendar renders the discovery of intriguing new composers
     an often frustratingly hit-and-miss occupation. Michael Gordon…has done more than his own share
     of such exploration, and he will showcase three not-for-much-longer emerging composers you
     should hear—Clarice Assad, Missy Mazzoli and Stefan Weisman—as part of the hall’s exciting Ear
     Department series. If those names don’t ring any bells just yet, they will soon…Each brings a
     respectable pedigree and commission rap sheet to the Merkin stage. But more important, each
     delivers a sound that sticks in the ear—Assad with her Brazilian-accented turns of phrase, Mazzoli
     with her smart electronic-processing touches and Weisman with his striking vocal lines.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
MEETINGS:

Mark Greenfest (of the New Music Connoisseur):
     This piece, an interlocking vocalese among the antagonistic forces of a baritone, bass, and soprano,
     is set in counterpoint, in chordal progressions. It’s decisively post-minimalist, with an engaging yet
     driving piano line. The dialogue flows back and forth on top of the vocalese-like texture. The aria,
     in which the soprano chants “Files, files, files,” is strikingly funny. Weisman’s music, replete with
     contemporary elements has structural integrity and is actively engaged in a rhythmic and harmonic
     balancing act (akin to Reich). The sound has a sculptural, dancing, quality to it, as if it were shaped
     on a musical potter’s wheel. It’s powerful material.
DAVID AND JONATHAN:

The Westsider, Bill Zakariasen:
     The text of David and Jonathan, adapted from the Old Testament by Meg Smith, is provocative...
     and so its Weisman’s beautiful score.  It’s initially surprising that the composer resists the
     temptation to illustrate the violent aspect of the story (e.g. Saul’s attempt to murder David, the
     fatal battle of Gilboa) in sound, and instead the whole 25-minute cantata is a model of notable
     refinement, even during the most famous passage in Samuel II ("Your love for me was more
     wonderful than the love of a woman") there is no breast-beating. Weisman obviously views the
     events as mainly a love story, not an epic. The score is consistently engrossing, pleasingly tonal
     with dissonance attractively placed at crucial points (the adventurous choral writing is particularly
     ear-catching), and well worth hearing again.
     CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Click to read about "David and Jonathan" in NEW YORK MAGAZINE and TIME OUT NEW YORK
    
CRASH:

ComposerUSA, Keith Paulson-Thorp:
     [A]ll of the pieces are works I would be interested in hearing again, or even performing. The
     program left little doubt of the stylistic retrenchment of post-modern music; this was music that
     was overtly geared as much to the average audience as to the scrutiny of fellow composers.  There
     was a noteworthy preponderance of lyrical writing, and also a penchant for special effects, an element
     that seemed particularly appropriate in Stefan Weisman’s “Crash,” a tribute to George Crumb (who was
     born the day of the great stock market crash of 1929).

CALABI YAU (AKA WHAT THE FUCK IS STRING THEORY):

CurtainUp, Les Gutman:
     Rarely does a week go by anymore, or so it seems, that I am not prometed to marvel at the
     number of plays being produced with scientific themes.  This week, we add "Calabi-Yau" to the
     list...The show also incorporates some very nice and effective organ music (Stephen Black) and
     vocals (Hai-Ting Chinn) composed by Stefan Weisman.
GREENLAND Y2K:

This Month ON STAGE:
     To ring in the new millenium at the North Pole is the ambitious goal of an intrepid exlorer (Susanna
     Speier as the Explornographer), but her determination is outflanked by a pesky Y2K Bug (Ian
     McCulloch)...Stefan Weisman's epic-sounding music conveys the Explornographer's ironic heroism.
NERVOUS PEOPLE:

Newsday, Gregg Wager:
     The [Bang on a Can] festival opened with a marathon of 23 pieces by various composers...The
     festival also included three world premieres, all strong works with their own sense of style...
     Stefan Weisman's tonal "Nervous People," for string quartet and trumpet, proceeded as a study
     in pianissimo, going through roughly seven sections where ostinatos dominate over slowly moving
     melody lines...
...AND SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK:

Woodstock Times (Preview), Cat Ballou:
     Weisman's instinct to communicate an emotional gestalt through a shifting perspective is a seer's
     gift...It's a tone poem that fosters anguished beautiful reflection.

 Woodstock Times (Review), Howard Vogel:
     Weisman's one-movement piece presents clear orchestral colors.  He builds dissonance with
     purposeful orchestration and a slow, insistent melodic line that emerges and recedes from the
     orchestral texture, now in the strings, later in the trombone.  The piece seems to me to be about
     music.

Daily Freeman, Kitty Montgomery:
     Weisman taps a universal in the piece that extends beyond technical craft and projected personal
     emotion...The work strikes me as if the composer has sensed something beyond himself...

Ulster County Freeman, Marianne D. Darrow:
     Perhaps this piece should carry an auditory warning label.
 bio       compositions       listen       news & events       PRESS       contact       PRESS     more