Alisa Weilerstein

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein combines natural, spontaneous flair with a flawless technique, proving herself as at home in Johann Sebastian Bach’s six solo Cello Suites BWV 1007–12 (c. 1720) as she is in the contemporary soundworlds of Lera Auerbach and Joseph Hallman. Born into a musical family in 1982 in Rochester, New York, she began playing the cello aged four and was instantly transported by its beguiling sound. For Weilerstein, music is a living, breathing organism, which gives a special intensity not only to her performances, but also her passion for new music, which has included the world premieres of Pascal Dusapin’s Outscape (2016) and Matthias Pintscher’s un despertar Cello Concerto (2017). During the Covid-19 lockdown, she celebrated her love of Bach’s Cello Suites on social media via a series of 36 daily videos, one for each movement. That love is central to Weilerstein’s Fragments (2023 onward), an ongoing series of six “chapters” combining the Suites with 27 newly commissioned works.