Biography

Lisa Weiss
Department: Music Department

Professor Lisa Weiss is co-director of both Goucher’s student opera company and musical theater company, serving as vocal coach, accompanist, and “orchestra” for the productions. Additionally, she directs the student chamber music seminar and teaches private piano. She received a Goucher Faculty Merit Award for Distinguished Achievement in 2004. Weiss’ concert career began at age seven as soloist with the Boston Pops, performing Haydn’s D Major Concerto. Her primary teachers have been Russell Sherman, the late Leon Kirchner, and Leon Fleisher. She made her New York debut in the late 80s. Of her performance of Bach, Copland, and Liszt, The New York Times’ Wil Crutchfield wrote, “uncommonly thoughtful, detailed, imaginative … a musician worth attention and able to hold it.” An avid promoter of new music, Weiss’ CD, Millennium Crossing (Capstone Records), features contemporary works for solo piano by Italian composers, for which she gave a five-city promotional tour in Italy. She also performed the East Coast premiere of L.A. composer Russell Steinberg’s Stories From My Favorite Planet – A Musical Tribute to Journalist Daniel Pearl in conjunction with the annual International Daniel Pearl Music Days Week.  She has most recently been a guest artist at Agder Conservatory in Norway, Tulane University, the Stephen Wise School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, and the Women Composers Forum in Tel Aviv, Israel. Weiss is a regular adjudicator of Maryland State Piano Teachers piano competitions. She is working on a new program of contemporary works for solo by American composers.