Alisa Weilerstein, cello

Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment, and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship in 2011. Today, her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concertos, in collaboration with preeminent composers, conductors, and orchestras worldwide. Dedicated to expanding the cello literature, she is celebrated not only for her authoritative live and recorded interpretations of the core repertoire, but also for bringing new works to life through a wealth of solo and concerto commissions. “Weilerstein is a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends,” marvels The New York Times. “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As the UK’s Telegraph puts it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.”

With her multi-season solo cello project, FRAGMENTS, Weilerstein aims to reimagine the concert experience. Comprising six programs, each an hour long, the series sees her weave together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works. Performed in a multisensory production directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, with responsive lighting and scenic elements, each program offers a fully immersive and visceral listening experience. Since premiering the first two programs at Toronto’s Koerner Hall in early 2023, Weilerstein has performed selected FRAGMENTS at Santa Barbara’s Campbell Hall, San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, Tanglewood Music Festival’s Seiji Ozawa Hall, Boston’s Sanders Theatre, the Maison symphonique de Montréal, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Charleston’s 2025 Spoleto Festival USA, where her debut account of the complete cycle was hailed as “the most awesome classical-music event this season…, a creation you literally had to see” (Classical Voice North America). A succession of key firsts follow in 2025-26, when, as well as continuing the series at Carnegie Hall and San Diego’s Jacobs Music Hall, Weilerstein gives FRAGMENTS’ European premiere at Rotterdam’s De Doelen, Czech premiere at Prague’s Dvořák Hall, German premiere at Leverkusen’s stARTfestival, and U.K. premiere at London’s Southbank Centre, where she undertakes a fall and winter artistic residency.

As a champion of contemporary music, commissioning new works for FRAGMENTS is just one of the ways Weilerstein has demonstrated her commitment to expanding the cello repertoire. As well as working extensively with Lera Auerbach, Osvaldo Golijov, and Joseph Hallman, she has premiered important new concertos written for her by six leading contemporary composers: Pascal Dusapin’s Outscape (2016), Matthias Pintscher’s un despertar (2017), Joan Tower’s A New Day (2021), Gabriela Ortiz’s Dzonot (2024), Thomas Larcher’s Returning into Darkness (2025), and Richard Blackford’s Cello Concerto (2025). She brought three of these new works to life in the 2024-25 season, giving the world and European premieres of Larcher’s concerto with the New York Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony; the world and album premieres of Blackford’s with the Czech Philharmonic; and the world, Colombian, New York, and album premieres of Ortiz’s with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel. In 2025-26, following the summer release of her two new concerto recordings, Weilerstein continues her residency at London’s Southbank Centre with the U.K. premiere of Ortiz’s Dzonot, featuring Marin Alsop and the Philharmonia Orchestra, before reprising the same work with the San Diego Symphony and performing Tower’s concerto with the commissioning Detroit Symphony.

Having given rapturously received live accounts on three continents, Weilerstein is already recognized as one of the leading exponents of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello. A Billboard bestseller, her Pentatone recording of the complete Bach suites was nominated for a 2021 Gramophone Award, while her insights into his first G major prelude, as captured in Vox’s YouTube series, have been viewed more than 2.3 million times. During the first weeks of the pandemic, she chronicled her developing engagement with the suites on social media, fostering an even closer connection with her online audience in her innovative #36DaysOfBach project.

As featured in a Gramophone cover story, in 2022 Pentatone released Weilerstein and Barnatan’s recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Cello and Piano. She and the pianist recorded the same composer’s Triple Concerto for a 2019 release with Stefan Jackiw, Alan Gilbert, and London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and she recorded both Haydn cello concertos as Artistic Partner of Norway’s Trondheim Soloists for release the previous year. Together with her solo Bach set, these Pentatone recordings expand Weilerstein’s already celebrated discography. Earlier releases include the Elgar and Elliott Carter cello concertos with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, named “Recording of the Year 2013” by BBC Music; Dvořák’s cello concerto with the Czech Philharmonic, which topped the U.S. classical chart; and her 2016 recording of Shostakovich’s cello concertos with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Pablo Heras-Casado, which proved “powerful and even mesmerizing” (San Francisco Chronicle). She and Barnatan made their duo album debut with sonatas by Chopin and Rachmaninoff in 2015, a year after she released Solo, a compilation of unaccompanied 20th-century cello music that was hailed as an “uncompromising and pertinent portrait of the cello repertoire of our time” (ResMusica, France). Solo’s centerpiece is Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello, a signature work that Weilerstein revisits on the soundtrack of If I Stay, a 2014 feature film starring Chloë Grace Moretz, in which the cellist makes a cameo appearance as herself.

Weilerstein has appeared with all the major orchestras of the United States, Europe, and Asia, collaborating with conductors including Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Jiří Bělohlávek, Semyon Bychkov, Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Mark Elder, Alan Gilbert, Giancarlo Guerrero, Bernard Haitink, Pablo Heras-Casado, Marek Janowski, Paavo Järvi, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Măcelaru, Zubin Mehta, Ludovic Morlot, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Peter Oundjian, Rafael Payare, Donald Runnicles, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Joshua Weilerstein, Simone Young, and David Zinman. In 2009, she was one of four artists invited by Michelle Obama to participate in a widely celebrated and high-profile classical music event at the White House, featuring student workshops hosted by the First Lady and performances in front of an audience that included President Obama and the First Family. A month later, Weilerstein toured Venezuela as soloist with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra under Dudamel and has since made numerous return visits to teach and perform with the orchestra as part of its famed El Sistema music education program.

Born in 1982, Alisa Weilerstein discovered her love for the cello at just two and a half, when she had chicken pox and her grandmother assembled a makeshift set of instruments from cereal boxes to entertain her. Although immediately drawn to the Rice Krispies box cello, Weilerstein soon grew frustrated that it didn’t produce any sound. After persuading her parents to buy her a real cello at the age of four, she developed a natural affinity for the instrument and gave her first public performance six months later. In 1995, at 13, she made her professional concert debut, playing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations with The Cleveland Orchestra, and in March 1997 she made her first Carnegie Hall appearance with the New York Youth Symphony. A graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss, Weilerstein also holds a degree in history from Columbia University. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) at nine years old, and is a staunch advocate for the T1D community, serving as a consultant for the biotechnology company eGenesis and as a Celebrity Ambassador for Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF), the world leader in T1D research. Born into a musical family, she is the daughter of violinist Donald Weilerstein and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, and the sister of conductor Joshua Weilerstein. She is married to conductor Rafael Payare, with whom she has two young children.

“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (The New York Times), Inon Barnatan has received universal acclaim for his “uncommon sensitivity” (The New Yorker), “impeccable musicality and phrasing” (Le Figaro), and his stature as “a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative” (The Evening Standard). A multifaceted musician, Barnatan is equally celebrated as soloist, curator, and collaborator.

Barnatan appears regularly with the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors. He was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic from 2014–17 under then Music Director Alan Gilbert, with whom he maintained a close and extensive collaboration, and has performed with the Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the BBC Symphony at the Proms, and most major U.S. orchestras. Abroad he has appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Zurich Tonhalle, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, and the London, Hong Kong, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics. He has given complete Beethoven concerto cycles with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, played Copland’s Piano Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall, and toured the U.S. with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, leading from the keyboard. With Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra he performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto on New Year’s Eve, followed by a Midwest tour and a return to the BBC Proms.

Barnatan’s 2025-26 season highlights include performances with major orchestras worldwide. He opens the season with a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Stefan Jackiw, violin, and Hayoung Choi, cello, at the Baltimore Symphony with Music Director Jonathon Heyward. He continues with concerto performances including Rhapsody in Blue with Dallas Symphony and Music Director Fabio Luisi, as well as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Minnesota Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Charlotte Symphony. Solo recital appearances this season include Tippet Rise Art Center, Noe Music, Tryon Concert Association, and a return to Wigmore Hall. Continuing with Pomegranate Arts’s project of the complete Etudes of Philip Glass, he will appear this season at the Krannert Center and University Musical Society. As a collaborator, he continues his long-term partnerships with cellist Alisa Weilerstein in duo recitals at Ravinia Festival, Spivey Hall, and McCallum Theatre; and with soprano Renée Fleming at Cal Performances, Schubert Club, Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Lyric Opera of Chicago. He will make his debut at the Taipei Music Festival and repeat his Fauré Piano Quartet program with violinist James Ehnes, violist Jonathan Vinocour, and cellist Raphael Bell at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Equally at home as a curator and chamber musician, Barnatan is Music Director of La Jolla Music Society Summerfest in California, one of the leading music festivals in the country. He regularly collaborates with world-class partners such as Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein and plays at major chamber music festivals including Seattle, Santa Fe, and Spoleto USA. Barnatan was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) from 2006 to 2009 and continues to perform with CMS in New York. His passion for contemporary music has resulted in commissions and performances of many living composers, including premieres of new works by Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Avner Dorman, Alan Fletcher, Joseph Hallman, Alasdair Nicolson, Andrew Norman, and Matthias Pintscher, among others.

In November 2023, Barnatan released his solo album, Rachmaninoff Reflections, offering some of the composer’s most cherished piano works, including his Moments musicaux, Prelude in G-Sharp Minor, and Barnatan’s own arrangement of the Vocalise. The centerpiece of this project is Barnatan’s breathtaking new piano arrangement of the Symphonic Dances, published by Boosey & Hawkes in October 2025. Barnatan’s acclaimed discography also includes a two-volume set of Beethoven’s complete piano concertos, recorded with Alan Gilbert and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on Pentatone. In its review, BBC Music Magazine wrote “The central strength of this first installment of Inon Barnatan’s piano concertos cycle is that, time and again, it puts you in touch with that feeling of ongoing wonderment.”  In 2021 he released his Time-Traveler Suite album on Pentatone, a program that merged Baroque movements by Bach, Handel, Rameau, and Couperin with movements by Ravel, Ligeti, Barber, and Thomas Adès, culminating in Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Handel. He has also released a live recording of Messiaen’s 90-minute masterpiece Des canyons aux étoiles (“From the Canyons to the Stars”), in which he played the exceptionally challenging solo piano part at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In 2015 he released Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas on Decca Classics with Alisa Weilerstein, earning rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. As a duo, Barnatan and Weilerstein have also released Beethoven Cello Sonatas (2022) and Brahms Cello Sonatas (2024) on Pentatone. His solo recording of Schubert’s late piano sonatas on Avie won praise from such publications as Gramophone and BBC Music, while his account of the great A major Sonata (D. 959) was chosen by BBC Radio 3 as one of the all-time best recordings of the piece. His 2012 album, Darknesse Visible, debuted in the Top 25 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart, was named BBC Music’s “Instrumentalist CD of the Month,” and won a coveted place on The New York Times’ “Best of 2012” list. He made his solo recording debut with a Schubert album, released by Bridge Records in 2006, that prompted Gramophone to hail him as “a born Schubertian”.

Previous career highlights include return performances with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and the London Philharmonic, as well as debuts with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony orchestras, the complete Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and conductor Alan Gilbert as well as the New Jersey Symphony and Music Director Xian Zhang, and a recreation of Beethoven’s legendary 1808 concert, which featured the world premieres of his Fourth Piano Concerto, Choral Fantasy, and Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony. Barnatan gave solo recitals at Celebrity Series of Boston, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, and London’s Southbank Centre, and made his debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Chamber music highlights included tours with the Ehnes Quartet, Jerusalem Quartet, violinist Sergey Khachatryan, and percussionist Colin Currie. As Artistic Director of the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Barnatan has collaborated with Grammy-winning jazz vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, visionary director and visual artist Doug Fitch, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Garrick Ohlsson, Augustin Hadelich, Caroline Shaw, Carter Brey, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and more.

Born in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three, when his parents discovered his perfect pitch, and made his orchestral debut at eleven. His musical education connects him to some of the 20th century’s most illustrious pianists and teachers: he studied first with Professor Victor Derevianko, a student of the Russian master Heinrich Neuhaus, before moving to London in 1997 to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton and Maria Curcio, a student of the legendary Artur Schnabel. The late Leon Fleisher was also an influential teacher and mentor..