The 2025 Alice M. Ditson Fund Conductor’s Award is presented to Conductor Timothy Weiss who has earned acclaim for his performances and bold programming throughout the United States and abroad. His repertoire in contemporary music is vast and fearless, including masterworks, very recent compositions, and an impressive number of recordings, premieres and commissions. He has received $5000 and a citation from interim President, Claire Shipman.
The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University established the Conductor’s Award in 1945. It is the oldest continuing award honoring conductors for distinguished contributions to American music. Previous recipients include David Zinman, Alan Gilbert, George Manahan, Leonard Bernstein, Cliff Colnot, Marin Alsop, Oliver Knussen, James Baker and Brad Lubman.
Augusta Read Thomas, Ditson Fund Committee member, University of Chicago Professor of Composition in the Division of the Arts and Humanities and the Director, Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition will present the award to Weiss on November 1st at Oberlin College during a concert of The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble (link HERE) Read Thomas said of Weiss “Timothy Weiss’ musicianship and artistry are stunning, energized, alive from within, radiant, musical, nuanced, sparking, stylish, and sophisticated! Tim’s superior ears for musical refinement and his vivid and powerful skill and imagination for new possibilities for music, imbue the experience of collaborating with Tim with beauty, empathy, joy, creativity, and vitality!”
For three decades, Weiss has directed the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, bringing the group to a level of artistry and virtuosity in performance that rivals the finest new music groups. He earned the Adventurous Programming Award from the League of American Orchestras for his work with Oberlin ensembles. During his tenure at Oberlin, he has helped launch the ensembles eighth blackbird and ICE, as well as many other leading performers of contemporary music. As a committed educator he has inspired generations of composers, performing musicians, and audiences alike.
He also serves as a faculty member and is the director of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Additionally, he is a co-director and founder of the Zohn-Collective, a flexible contemporary music collective which seeks to produce and perform artist-driven projects generated by its members. He remains active as a guest conductor in the US and abroad and continues to be a regular guest of the Arctic Philharmonic Sinfonietta in Norway, where he served as Artistic Director for six years and received a recent Grammy nomination for his recordings. He has also worked with Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia, Eastman Broadband Ensemble, BBC Scottish Symphony,,Britten Sinfonia in London, ICE, Grossman Ensemble in Chicago, and the Melbourne Symphony in Australia.
Weiss holds degrees from the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, Belgium; Northwestern University; and the University of Michigan.
