Neil Ginsberg

Musical Director/Pianist

I've always been up for music directing a show or the chance to play piano. Throughout my career I have worked as a pianist, orchestrator, conductor and vocal coach in New York and Los Angeles. I have accompanied some of Broadway's finest singers and played auditions for countless aspiring performers too. 


Here are few select venues and projects:

• Forever Plaid, Off Broadway, National Tour and many other venues.   (Over 1000 performances!)
• Nunsense, Off Broadway
• Reality! by Itamar Moses and Gaby Alter at the Cape Cod Theater Project (2008)
• Hartford Stage Company
• Paper Mill Playhouse
• York Theater Company
• Three seasons at the New London Barn Playhouse in New Hampshire. (And every minute of it was Barntastic!)
• Conductor of the Broadway Chorus at the 92nd Street Y
• Southbay Civic Light Opera
• Canon Theater of Beverly Hills
• Green Mountain Guild
• Pocono Playhouse (R.I.P.)
• Palm Canyon Theater
• School of the Hartford Ballet
• Mark Morris Dance Group, Brooklyn, NY (accompanist for dance classes)

I was the staff accompanist at the Juilliard School of Drama in 1995 where I played classes for Deb Lapidus (who is without a doubt the greatest voice teacher I've ever known).

For several years, I played mock auditions at The American Theater Wing's SpringboardNYC program.  An amazing resource for actors transitioning into the New York theater scene.  

Composing

Professional Theatre

• Joys!
  by Melissa Levis; (Additional Music) Off Broadway at the Variety Arts Theater
  and New York International Fringe Festival. Winner: Audience Choice Award 2005
• Loss of Virginia
  by Rachel Sheinkin; Company One Theater of Hartford, 1993
• Gallathea
  by John Lyly; Here Arts Center, adapted and directed by Michelle Tattenbaum, 2004
• Ursula
   by Howard Barker, Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center,
    Our Shoes Are Red Theater Company, Portland, OR, 2009
• Time and Space
  by John Karp; Don’t Tell Mama’s, New York City, 1995
• My Name is Pablo Picasso
  by Mary Gage; (Incidental Music) Off Broadway at the Douglass Fairbanks Theater, 1989

Film/TV

• Idea
  by Itamar Moses, directed by Michelle Tattenbaum 2022
• Movie Magic
  GRB Entertainment, Discovery Channel, 1994

Children's and Educational Theatre

• Snow White and Several Dwarfs
  Pantomonium Theater Company, Arc Light Theater, New York, 2010
• The Emperor’s New Clothes 
  Pantomonium Theater Company, Arc Light Theater, New York, 2009
• Aladdin
  Pantomonium Theater Company, Arc Light Theater, New York, 2008
• The Cool Crazy Crickets
  New London Barn Playhouse, Page to Stage Players, New London, NH, 2006
• IS 
  by Daniel Catanach; Henry Street Settlement, Urban Youth Theater, 1997
• Billy the Kid 
  by Daniel Catanach; Henry Street Settlement, Urban Youth Theater,
  (Meet the Composer Award) 1996
• A Weekend Ride 
  by Daniel Catanach; Show developed with children who are wheelchair bound at 
  New Alternatives for Children, New York City, 1996

University

• Caucasian Chalk Circle 
  by Bertolt Brecht; Juilliard School of Drama, 1995
• Bodies, Sight, and Singing
  Duke University, 1994
• Cactus Tree 
  by Sarah Orth; Fordham University, New York City, 1994
• The Pursuit of Happiness
   Hartt School of Music, 1992

I was a staff composer at Musikvergnuegen in Los Angeles for a few years.  I had the chance to work with lots of cool gear, hear my music played by some of the best musicians around and learn from the master Walter Werzowa who created the Intel Inside logo and many other feats of sound.   I produced music for television shows, commercials and a few films.  

I also had one of the coolest jobs on the planet for a while: accompanying silent films at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles (now it's called the Cinefamily). This gig confirmed what I've always known which was that (1) movies were better without sound and (2) I was born in the wrong era.

Podcast

To demonstrate my commitment to 21st century media and my religion, I composed the theme to a podcast called From Israelite to Jew by Michael Satlow of Brown University.  My wife Michelle sings the wordless melody with style.