Jay Weiner's Portfolio

Hello! My name is Jay Weiner.

I am sixteen years old and am currently enrolled in the S6-7 Music 4 course at EEB1, the European School in Brussels, Belgium. My primary instrument is voice, but I spent six years playing cello and have recently picked up the electric bass.

Music has been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember, and my mother always encouraged me to interact with music in all its forms. At the age of seven, I joined the preparatory choir of the La Monnaie Children and Youth Choirs, and have since moved on to La Choraline (the 13-18 year section of the Youth Choirs).

I’ve taken part in various operas and musicals in recent years, such as The Sound of Music (as Friedrich Von Trapp, produced by the company Ars Lyrica), The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan (produced by the Brussels Light Opera Company, BLOC), SOLAR – Icarus Burning, by Howard Moody (with the Youth Choir, at La Monnaie), Der Rosenkavalier, by Richard Strauss (in small choir, at La Monnaie), and others.

I’ve also participated in several recordings (Carmen, A Christmas Journey, 2:Love) and many performances with my choir, including two concerts at the Belgian Royal Palace in Laeken, a small solo in Benoit Mernier’s Dickinson Songs at BOZAR, conducted by Alain Altinoglu, and a week-long International Youth Choir Festival in Hanover, Germany.

The highlight of my musical career so far will be performing the title role of the contemporary opera “Fanny and Alexander”, at La Monnaie Royal Opera House, by the Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, conducted by Ariane Matiakh and directed by Ivo van Hove, next to important singers such as Thomas Hampson and Anne Sofie von Otter.

This portfolio will be a record of most of my musical ventures over the next two years, and in that time, though I think it’ll be hard to go up from doing Fanny and Alexander at the beginning of S6, I’m hoping I’ll be able to branch further from just opera and choral music, and maybe sing or play with a band or join a musical or two. Otherwise, I’d also like to learn to enjoy composing, as currently, I can’t be seen within two metres of an open MuseScore document without freezing up, but that might be too hopeful…