Alisa Weilerstein
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein has appeared with leading orchestras all over the U.S. and Europe and has played chamber music with her parents, both well-known performers, in the Weilerstein Trio. Her repertory is wide but has been marked by a focus on contemporary music.
Weilerstein was born in Rochester, New York, on April 14, 1982. Her parents are Donald Weilerstein, first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet, and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein; violinist and conductor Joshua Weilerstein is her brother. At age two and a half, Weilerstein contracted chickenpox. As she recuperated, her mother created a makeshift cello from a Rice Krispies box. Alisa was delighted but frustrated that the instrument could not produce musical notes, and she demanded a real cello. At four, she received one, and within six months, she was performing in public. Weilerstein performed Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, with the Cleveland Orchestra. Two years later, she performed with the New York Youth Symphony. Weilerstein attended Columbia University, majoring in Russian history and graduating in 2004. Her career was propelled by several major awards and grants, including the Leonard Bernstein Prize at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2006, and, most important, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a "genius grant," in 2011. She used some of the proceeds of the latter to develop relationships with living composers. She has not just championed contemporary music but has premiered multiple pieces by such composers as Osvaldo Golijov and Lera Auerbach. Weilerstein has also played the difficult Cello Concerto of Elliott Carter, selecting that work for her first recording in 2012. In traditional repertory, she has appeared as a concerto soloist with numerous major orchestras around the U.S. and Europe, including such Central European stalwarts as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, and the Czech Philharmonic, with which she toured the U.S.. as a soloist in Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. In 2018, she began a multi-year engagement as Artistic Partner to Norway's innovative Trondheim Soloists.
Weilerstein made her debut in 2000 as an 18-year-old prodigy with the album Alisa Weilerstein, Cello. She recorded for Decca from 2012 to 2016, and then for PentaTone Classics. On that label, she released the album Bach, featuring that composer's six suites for solo cello, in 2020. A sufferer from type 1 diabetes, Weilerstein has served as a celebrity spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
19 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Anton Dvorák : Complete Symphonies & Concertos
Czech Philharmonic, Jiří Bělohlávek , Garrick Ohlsson, Alisa Weilerstein, Frank Peter Zimmermann
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Dvořák: Cello Concerto, Rondo, Silent Woods
Alisa Weilerstein, Czech Philharmonic, Jiří Bělohlávek , Anna Polonsky
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Apr 21, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninov & Chopin Cello Sonatas
Alisa Weilerstein, Inon Barnatan
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Sep 1, 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Shostakovich: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Alisa Weilerstein, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Pablo Heras-Casado
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Sep 23, 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Cello Suites
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on Apr 3, 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Solo
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Transfigured Night
Alisa Weilerstein, Trondheim Soloists
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on Aug 1, 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Cello Sonatas
Alisa Weilerstein, Inon Barnatan
Chamber Music - Released by PENTATONE on Jun 5, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach Famous Pieces
Classical - Released by PentaTone on Dec 2, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: III. Courante
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on Mar 27, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar & Carter Cello Concertos
Alisa Weilerstein, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 2012
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Piano Concertos, Vol. 1
Inon Barnatan, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Stefan Jackiw, Alan Gilbert, Alisa Weilerstein
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on Oct 1, 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Old Souls
Gili Schwarzman, Guy Braunstein, Susanna Yoko Henkel, Amihai Grosz, Alisa Weilerstein
Chamber Music - Released by PentaTone on Sep 27, 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Dvořák
Alisa Weilerstein, Czech Philharmonic, Jiří Bělohlávek , Anna Polonsky
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Apr 21, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Shostakovich: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Alisa Weilerstein, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Pablo Heras-Casado
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Sep 23, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninov & Chopin Cello Sonatas
Alisa Weilerstein, Inon Barnatan
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Sep 1, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dvorák: Complete Symphonies & Concertos
Czech Philharmonic, Jiří Bělohlávek , Garrick Ohlsson, Alisa Weilerstein, Frank Peter Zimmermann
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1
Philadelphia Orchestra, Alisa Weilerstein
Classical - Released by The Philadelphia Orchestra on May 22, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Courante from Cello Suite No. 2
Chamber Music - Released by PENTATONE on Mar 27, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo