× Upcoming Events A Message from the Lobby Make a Donation About The Purchase PAC Past Events
Home A Message from the Lobby Make a Donation About The Purchase PAC
Alisa Weilerstein
Cello

Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment, and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011. Today, her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concerto collaborations with preeminent conductors and orchestras worldwide.

The New York Times called her “a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: Not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends.” “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As The Telegraph put it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.”

Ms. Weilerstein recently premiered Joan Tower’s new cello concerto, A New Day, at the Colorado Music Festival. The work was co-commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; The Cleveland Orchestra, with which she performed it last fall; and the National Symphony Orchestra, where she reprised it in May 2022. An ardent champion of contemporary music, she has also premiered and supported important new works by composers who include Pascal Dusapin, Osvaldo Golijov, and Matthias Pintscher.

An authority on J. S. Bach’s music for unaccompanied cello, in spring 2020, Ms. Weilerstein released a best-selling recording of his solo suites on the Pentatone label; streamed them in her innovative #36DaysOfBach project; and deconstructed his beloved Suite No. 1 in G Major in a Vox.com video, which has been viewed more than two million times. Her discography includes chart-topping albums and the winner of BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year. Other career milestones include a performance at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama.

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at nine years old, Ms. Weilerstein is a staunch advocate for the T1D community. She lives with her husband, Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, and their two young children.

Photo: Alisa Weilerstein (c) Marco Borggreve

Alisa Weilerstein
Cello

Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment, and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011. Today, her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concerto collaborations with preeminent conductors and orchestras worldwide.

The New York Times called her “a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: Not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends.” “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As The Telegraph put it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.”

Ms. Weilerstein recently premiered Joan Tower’s new cello concerto, A New Day, at the Colorado Music Festival. The work was co-commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; The Cleveland Orchestra, with which she performed it last fall; and the National Symphony Orchestra, where she reprised it in May 2022. An ardent champion of contemporary music, she has also premiered and supported important new works by composers who include Pascal Dusapin, Osvaldo Golijov, and Matthias Pintscher.

An authority on J. S. Bach’s music for unaccompanied cello, in spring 2020, Ms. Weilerstein released a best-selling recording of his solo suites on the Pentatone label; streamed them in her innovative #36DaysOfBach project; and deconstructed his beloved Suite No. 1 in G Major in a Vox.com video, which has been viewed more than two million times. Her discography includes chart-topping albums and the winner of BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year. Other career milestones include a performance at the White House for President and Mrs. Obama.

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at nine years old, Ms. Weilerstein is a staunch advocate for the T1D community. She lives with her husband, Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, and their two young children.

Photo: Alisa Weilerstein (c) Marco Borggreve