"Weilerstein is a young cellist whose performances of both historical and contemporary music, reverberating with emotion, have earned her international acclaim, an accomplished performer who combines technical precision with passionate musicality." So judged the MacArthur Foundation when it awarded American cellist Alisa Weilerstein a MacArthur Fellowship in 2011. In her third season as Artistic Partner of the Trondheim Soloists, Alisa Weilerstein is embarking on a tour of Germany with concerts at the Kölner Philharmonie, Heidelberger Frühling, as well as in Weiden, Celle and the Frauenkirche Dresden.
Their first album together, 2018's "Transfigured Night" on Pentatone, featuring Schoenberg's "Transfigured Night" and both of Haydn's cello concertos, received unanimous acclaim - Gramophone Magazine proclaimed: "One would have to search long and hard to find performances of the Haydn concertos that match Alisa Weilerstein's blend of stylistic sensitivity, verve, and spontaneous joy of discovery. and spontaneous joy of discovery." Beyond the partnership with the Trondheim Soloists, highlights of the season include a continuing partnership with
the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra conducted by Alan Gilbert, the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Jurowsky, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin with Christoph Eschenbach, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Gergely Madaras, and an intensive collaboration with Rafael Payare, both with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.
Chamber music-wise, Alisa Weilerstein continues her longstanding partnership with pianist Inon Barnatan, embarking on a U.S. tour of the Beethoven Sonatas, including including concerts in New York and San Francisco. She can also be heard with a solo recital in Boston. In recent years Weiterstein has recorded the cello concertos of Edward Elgar and Elliott Carter with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin. The CD was named BBC Music's 2013 Recording of the Year, and the cellist graced the cover of the May 2014 issue. Her recording of the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic topped the classical charts in the United States. Her third CD, a selection of unaccompanied music for cello from the 20th century, titled Solo, has been proclaimed "an uncompromising and useful portrait of the cello repertoire of of our time" (ResMusica, France). Solo's main piece is the Sonata by Zoltán Kodály, a showpiece that Weilerstein used in the music for the feature film If I Stay, starring Chloë
Grace Moretz in the lead role (2014), where the cellist makes a cameo appearance as herself. In 2015, Weilerstein released recordings of the Chopin and Rachmaninoff sonatas; this was her debut album with Inon Barnatan. And in 2016, she released her CD of the two Shostakovich concertos with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado.
Milestones in Weilerstein's career include an emotionally stirring rendition of the Elgar concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Barenboim in Oxford, England, and a White House performance for Barack and Michelle Obama. An avid champion of contemporary music, she has collaborated on several projects by Osvaldo Golijov and Matthias Pintscher and premiered works by Lera Auerbach and Joseph Hallman.
Weilerstein, whose awards include the Martin E. Segal Prize from New York's Lincoln Center (2008) and the Leonard Bernstein Award (2006), is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and Columbia University in New York. Alissa Weilerstein has type 1 diabetes and is a Celebrity Advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Foundation.