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Alisa WeilersteinBiography
The 25-year old American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread recognition for playing that combines natural virtuosity and technical assurance with impassioned musicianship. Ms. Weilerstein has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals. She is also dedicated to performing chamber music, having grown up in a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age. Regularly lauded for her interpretive instincts coupled with technical prowess, the New York Times wrote of a performance that Ms. Weilerstein “radiated such concentration and pleasure…that watching her became a lesson in the art of listening.” Following her recent New York Philharmonic debut, performing the Elgar Cello Concerto, Newsday wrote, “to hear Weilerstein play is to experience the serenity of being in a master’s hands.” Ms. Weilerstein is already continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among others. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, Orchestre National de France, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She makes regular appearances at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Bad Kissingen, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein, Spoleto USA, Vail, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Verbier Festival. Ms. Weilerstein was recently named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she received at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. During the 2006-07 season Ms. Weilerstein made her New York Philharmonic subscription debut performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting, and performed with the Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel in Tokyo during the Philharmonic’s 2006 Japan Korea visit. She also made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach conducting, and gave recitals with violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Lilya Zilberstein at Carnegie Hall, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Barbican in London. Other highlights of Ms. Weilerstein’s 2006-07 season include performances with the Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the Moscow State Symphony as part of their U.S. tour, among other engagements. During the 2007-08 season Ms. Weilerstein performed with the Detroit Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis, the Pittsburgh Symphony under Marek Janowski, the San Diego Symphony under Jahja Ling, the San Francisco Symphony under David Roberston, and the Toronto Symphony under Peter Oundjian, among many other engagements. She also gave several recitals throughout the U.S., including the Celebrity Series in Boston. Abroad she performed with the NDR Hamburg under Manfred Honeck, the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel at the Hong Kong Festival, and gave recitals in Bergamo, Bologna, and Milan, Italy. Alisa Weilerstein was the recipient in 2000 of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) “Rising Stars” recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000-01, Ms. Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Ms. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics’ “Debut” series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvorák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janácek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla. Born in 1982, Alisa began playing the cello at age four and performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. |
