Alisa Weilerstein
Image by courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein was rehearsing at the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival in September when she learned that she’d been named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. Noting her “technical precision” and “impassioned musicianship,” the MacArthur Foundation described her as “a consummate performer.”
The $500,000 “genius grant” came during a year in which the 29-year-old hit her stride as an internationally celebrated soloist, with return engagements at the New York, Los Angeles and Hamburg philharmonic orchestras, tours of Australia and Europe, and a debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea.
Born in Rochester, N.Y., to prominent Jewish musicians Donald Weilerstein and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, with whom she performs as part of the Weilerstein Trio, Weilerstein launched a solo career as a teenager but eschewed conservatory training in favor of a degree in Russian history from Columbia University.
An advocate of contemporary music, she has worked closely with a number of living composers, among them Jewish superstars Osvaldo Golijov and Gabriel Kahane.
Weilerstein’s emotionally resonant performances have garnered her comparisons to Jacqueline du Pré, whom she described to the Forward as “my favorite cellist who ever lived.” In 2010, Weilerstein made her Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra debut with Daniel Barenboim conducting the signature piece of du Pré, his late wife — the Edward Elgar Cello Concerto. In March, Weilerstein signed an exclusive recording contract with Decca Classics; she plans to record the Elgar with Barenboim in 2012.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
