ALISA WEILERSTEIN, cello

 “Cellists twice or thrice Weilerstein’s age would be hard-pressed to match the concentrated beauty and power of this young dynamo’s playing.”
 – Cleveland Plain Dealer
(a review of Ms. Weilerstein with The Cleveland Orchestra)

24 year old world renowned cellist Alisa Weilerstein has appeared with world renowned orchestras including the National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  She has appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, Caramoor Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Spoleto Festival.  As a recitalist, Ms. Weilerstein has appeared in music centers across the United States, and in Europe.  Internationally, Ms. Weilerstein has performed in Europe, South America, Japan, and Australia.

Making her debut with Maestro Scott and the Helena Symphony, Ms. Weilerstein is one of the busiest and most acclaimed young artists of 21st century.  She has attracted widespread recognition for playing that combines natural virtuosity and technical assurance with impassioned musicianship.  Since Ms. Weilerstein’s first public concert at the age of five, Ms. Weilerstein has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the United States and Europe, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals.  Ms. Weilerstein is also dedicated to performing chamber music, having grown up in a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age. 

In 2000, Ms. Weilerstein was the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-2001, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) “Rising Stars” recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two.  She has recorded for the EMI Classics “Debut” series works by Paganini, Dvořák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Janácek, Saint-Saëns, 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, Vivian Hornik and Donald Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995 at age 13, playing Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.

Making 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.