Jay Weigel is a composer and musician from New Orleans. He has worked in the Film/TV world for over 20 years. His work can be heard in feature films, documentaries, orchestrations, arrangements for major recording artists and over 300 commercials. Additionally, original work has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center, Louisiana Philharmonic, St. Louis Cathedral, University of Southern Mississippi Symphony, and the Acadiana Symphony to name a few.

Since 1985 he has composed and recorded music for various video and film soundtracks, commercials and records. From 1985 to 1991 he was Lecturer of Composition and Orchestration at Xavier University in New Orleans. Weigel helped organize the Louisiana Composers Guild, and has served as the co-chairman of the Louisiana Music Commission since 1998. Most recently, Weigel served on the Bring New Orleans Back Subcommittee on Culture, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu’s Louisiana Rebirth Advisory Board and is a Board member of the Louisiana Cultural Foundation. This year he started a class in film scoring for Loyola University in New Orleans.

Weigel has served as Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Center, CAC, in New Orleans since 1996. Prior to this appointment, Weigel was Music Director of the CAC for eleven years. Under his leadership the CAC has emerged on the National arts scene as a significant force in the production and presenting of contemporary work. His responsibilities as Executive Director include serving as artistic and performing arts director for this multidisciplinary arts center. The music Weigel has programmed at the CAC includes contemporary chamber music, electro-acoustic music and experimental jazz. He also initiated the CAC artist residency program for musicians, which provides both renowned and emerging artists opportunities to commission new works, perform and serve as teachers and mentors.

Weigel’s concert works integrate the folk and improvised music of America, and in particular, New Orleans into a classical format. Several orchestras have commissioned Weigel to produce new works, including the New Orleans Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony and Lincoln Symphony. In 1994 he received a major commission from the National Symphony Orchestra and Kennedy Center as the Louisiana composer whose work most reflected the state culture, and created From the Streets.

In 1998 Weigel premiered his contemporary opera, Ash Wednesday, to New Orleans audiences at the opening event of the Faulkner Festival. with critical acclaim. Weigel’s post-modern opera, Dawn in the Floating City, was presented at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts in 2002. The opera examines the dialogue between the communities that make up the culture of New Orleans.

His most recent opera, The River May Cry, features a successful integration of European classical music with the blues, gospel, jazz and African music, and a diverse array of musicians to performance the original work. A full theatrical production of The River May Cry premiered at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts in February of 2005.

The composition first came to life as an oratorio commissioned by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art to celebrate its grand opening in 2004. The oratorio was recorded and released in 2004.

In 2004, Weigel’s Mass of Pope John Paul II, was commissioned by the St. Louis Cathedral. This work, scored for orchestra and choir, was the first to be commissioned honoring then Pope, John Paul II. Sadly, two weeks before the premiere of the work in 2005 Pope John Paul II passed away. Following its premiere the work was recorded and released on the MCG Jazz Label.