A native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, composer Christopher Weiss (b. 1980) has received commissions from the Jacksonville Symphony (FL), the Huntsville Symphony (AL), the ensemble Luna Nova (TN), the Atlantic Music Festival (ME), and the Music From Angel Fire Festival (NM), at which he was a 2008 composer-in-residence. His music has been performed by many regional orchestras and has been featured on American Public Media’s “Performance Today.”
Christopher has won numerous awards and competitions, including the prestigious Presser Music Award from the Presser Foundation in 2007. In 2006, he was the youngest competitor ever to win the top prize in the Jacksonville Symphony’s new music competition.
Christopher was raised primarily in northeastern states, also living in coastal Maine and in upstate New York. His paternal grandfather, a fisheries biologist in Missouri, was an amateur violinmaker who enjoyed experimenting by constructing violins using unconventional woods. At the age of five, Christopher was presented by his grandfather with a custom-made, one-quarter-size violin and began taking his first music lessons. At the age of twelve he taught himself how to play the piano, and began composing during high school after his family moved to Central Florida. In his second year of high school, he was invited to study with Ted Ricketts, one of Walt Disney World Entertainment’s most renowned composers and producers.
Christopher Weiss holds degrees from Rollins College (FL) where he studied with Daniel Crozier and The Curtis Institute of Music (PA) where he studied with Richard Danielpour.