About
Photo by Ri Tornello
Artistic Statement
Yoshi Weinberg (They/Them)
The music of a composer is shaped by a mix of personal experiences, identities, education, emotions, mental health, and/or the active and intentional exclusion of all of these. For me, composition occurred naturally after a complex history of learning and experiencing music as a young, queer, trans, non-binary, jewish person. I understand my musical compositions as an intersection of my sometimes disparate identities and a reflection of myself at the time of creating. Recently, due to the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the national attention brought to police brutality and systematic racism experienced by Black and Brown communities, I’ve had to reflect on my artistic practice and how to use it as a tool to support the communities of marginalized people. In one way, I feel conflicted about promoting my work during this time, while also feeling the need to make art and to create a living for myself. I recognize the systematic oppression of BIPOC artists that has existed within classical music for centuries, and firmly stand against racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. I use my art to open pathways of communication, and to reach audiences of all backgrounds, though I understand that my network and audience is shaped by white supremacy and racism built into our society as a whole. My hope is that I can bring awareness of these societal issues to my communities by supporting BIPOC, femme-identifiying, and/or queer composers, and by responsibly and ethically practicing my art with a knowledge and understanding of the struggles and barriers that these marginalized groups face.
My background as a musician began as an exploration of how sound relates to emotion. I remember sitting at a piano when I was 7 or 8, knowing nothing of music, and pressing keys until the sounds made me feel good. This is one of my earliest memories of music, and continues to be the way I compose, although the technique and the tools may have changed somewhat. I slowly developed my compositional voice through improvisations sitting alone at the piano. For years I would create improvisations, but I never wrote anything down. I never took piano or composition lessons until I was in college, so how I understood the music making process was not through technique, but through intuition. I studied classical flute and harp performance in my undergrad, and worked with many composers in both premiere performances and improvisations as a performer. It wasn’t until one of them told me I was a composer that the thought even struck my mind. I had only ever written for myself, and the majority of the time it was through improvisation. It was this turning point that changed my perspective of how I create art, and how it is perceived. Today, my compositions are always informed by improvisation as well as influences from literature, poetry, visual art, and electronic mediums. Because I value individual voices over a group, I tend to write for small chamber ensembles, vocalists, or soloists almost exclusively. I connect sound with emotion, and in general tend to write quasi-tonally without complexity. I value creating relationships through collaboration and sustainability through the interaction between composer and performer and the blurring of the lines between the two.
Bio
Yoshi Weinberg (they/them) is a New York City based flutist, harpist, and composer. Lauded for their “sublime tone” and “creative interpretation and technical virtuosity” (I Care If You Listen), Yoshi is a dedicated performer of contemporary and experimental works. They have performed on the stages of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall (LA), the Fitzgerald Theater (St. Paul, MN), the Ordway Center for the Arts (Minneapolis), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Orchestra Hall (Minneapolis, MN), Gesellschaftshaus (Magdeburg, Germany), Fondation des États-Unis (Paris, France), among many others. They currently are Artistic Director of NYC-based experimental music collective InfraSound, and is founding member and flutist for Apply Triangle, InfraSound, and Aqueeressence. As a sought after chamber musician, Yoshi performs frequently with Talea, Contemporaneous, ChamberQUEER, and has appeared as guest artist with legendary soprano Lucy Shelton, Ensemble Signal, the Da Capo Chamber Players, and Zeitgeist. Yoshi is currently a substitute musician on Reed 1 for The Lion King on Broadway performing on 12 different world flutes and pan flutes. Additionally, Yoshi served as Artistic Director of the Minnesotan new music ensemble RenegadeEnsemble for their 2017-2018 season, and performed regularly in Minneapolis/St. Paul as flutist with Renegade, Zeitgeist and Spitting Image Collective. Yoshi was a participant in the 2018 Ensemble Evolution residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, where they worked and performed with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, and premiered works by George Lewis, Cory Smythe, and themself. Yoshi won 1st Prize in the 2015 Schubert Club Competition, 2nd Prize in the 2019 Upper-Midwest Flute Association Young Artist Competition, and 3rd Prize in the 2020 South Carolina Flute Society Young Artist Competition.
A frequent orchestral player on both flute/piccolo and harp, Yoshi has performed with Protestra, the International Pride Orchestra, Ensemble 212, Fort Greene Orchestra, Greenwich Village Orchestra, Berkshire Opera Festival Orchestra, and under the batons of conductors James Baker, Steven Schick, JoAnn Falletta, David Bloom, Kamna Gupta, Elinor Rufeizen, Robert Moody, Ward Stare, Kenneth Kiesler, Rosen Milanov, and many many others.
As a composer, Yoshi’s compositions have been described as “a stunning compositional display of polyphony and texture” (ICIYL) and “transcendent, emotional, and intimate” (Sparks and Wiry Cries), and that their work “artfully blends contemporary composition with fantastically haunting and dramatic poetry” (IN Magazine). Their works have been premiered by members of the Flute New Music Consortium, ChamberQUEER, InfraSound, e(L)ement duo, the dream songs project, and RenegadeEnsemble, and have been featured at the National Flute Association Convention, on Minnesota Public Radio, and at the American Harp Society Summer Institute.
Yoshi is currently studying their D.M.A. in Flute Performance at the CUNY Graduate Center, studying with Robert Dick. They graduated with a B.M. in Music Performance from Saint Olaf College in 2015 studying flute with Catherine Ramirez and harp with Elinor Niemisto, and a M.M. degree in Contemporary Music Performance at the Manhattan School of Music in 2020 studying flute with Tara Helen O’Connor, composition with Reiko Füting, David Adamcyk, and Susan Botti, and harp with Susan Jolles. Other teachers and coaches include Margaret Kampmeier, Lucy Shelton, Patricia George, and Michele Frisch. Yoshi currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with their 55+ houseplants.
For the gear-heads:
Yoshi performs on a silver Muramatsu flute with a 10k-gold Lafin headjoint, a Burkart Elite Custom piccolo with a cocuswood Mancke headjoint, and a Trevor James bass flute. They also are the proud owner of a 1930’s Style 17 Lyon and Healy pedal harp.
Selected Media
