Mark Lanz Weiser, composer

Born in 1968, composer Mark Lanz Weiser holds degrees in composition and piano performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University. He has received commissions from the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra, the New Horizons Chamber Ensemble, Nations Bank, and the Hopkins Symphony among others. Awards include four consecutive ASCAP grants, twice consecutively the Otto Ortmann prize in composition, the Goodman Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and residencies at the Yaddo Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Most recently, Mark Weiser's three act opera Where Angels Fear to Tread (1998), libretto by Roger Brunyate based on the novel by E. M. Forster, was premiered in February at the Peabody Conservatory. Stephen Wigler of the Baltimore Sun described it as "the best new opera (he's) heard in years." Other works for the stage and voice include an operatic setting of W. B. Yeats' short play Purgatory (1990), described by the Baltimore Evening Sun as "evocative, complex, and beautiful;" Rendezvous of Light (1994), a one-woman show about Emily Dickinson commissioned by the Young Victorian Theater; An Anthem for a Doomed Youth (1989), for baritone and piano, which won first prize in the National Art Song Competition for the National Association of Teachers of Singing and is published by Boosey & Hawkes; and A Renaissance Serenade (1991), for coloratura soprano and orchestra. Instrumental works include A Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra (1996), Valley Overture (1997), and a Sinfonia (1993) for large orchestra.

Mark Weiser is currently a full-time faculty member in the Peabody Music Theory Department, a position he has held since 1995.