Oberlin

Timothy Weiss, conductor

Time Weiss, conductor

Conductor Timothy Weiss has gained critical acclaim for his performances and brave, adventurous programming throughout the United States and abroad.

Since 2005, he has served as music director for the Newark Granville Symphony Orchestra, a professional ensemble in the Columbus, Ohio, area. He has also remained active as a guest conductor with the BBC Scottish Symphony in Glasgow, Scotland; the Britten Sinfonia in London; ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble); and with concerts with the Toledo Symphony, Quad City Symphony, San Angelo Symphony, Detroit Chamber Winds and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.

Weiss is committed to exploring the probing connections within and between pieces in his performances and searching for similarities of voice between different composers from seemingly different genres, periods, and backgrounds. Accordingly, his programs often present rare and revealing juxtapositions, offering a broad range of works from the minimalists to the maximalists, from the old to the new, and from the mainstream to the unheard of. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of premieres and commissions. Recently, he was the recipient of the Adventurous Programming Award from the American Symphony Orchestra League.

In his 19 years as music director of the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, he has brought the group to a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance that rivals the finest new music groups. After a concert with the ensemble in Carnegie Hall, Anthony Aibel wrote in a review, “under the direction of Timothy Weiss [the ensemble] presented unbelievably polished, superb performances—impeccable performances—of extremely challenging recent music…Their level of preparation eclipses the highest standard...Each work on the program had something vital to say, something profound, and [Weiss] was able to communicate the music’s message with vitality and insight, despite its extreme difficulty and somewhat foreign language. Weiss conducted with economy of gesture—never over conducting, never distracting from the music…the performance…cohered like one instrument with perfection thanks to the expert preparation by Timothy Weiss.”

As a committed educator, he is professor of conducting and chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he created and mentored the ensemble eighth blackbird. He holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan.

© 2010 Oberlin College & Conservatory