Alisa Weilerstein

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein has performed as soloist with major orchestras across the United States and Europe while also collaborating in chamber settings with her parents, themselves established musicians, through the Weilerstein Trio. She distinguishes herself among classical artists as a MacArthur Fellowship recipient. Although her repertoire covers a broad range, contemporary works have formed a consistent emphasis. Her recorded output is extensive and features the 2024 album Brahms: Cello Sonatas.

Weilerstein entered the world on April 14, 1982, in Rochester, New York. Her father, Donald Weilerstein, served as first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet, and her mother is pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein; violinist and conductor Joshua Weilerstein is her brother. Chickenpox struck when she was two-and-a-half. While she recovered, her mother improvised a cello from a Rice Krispies box. Alisa enjoyed the object yet grew impatient that it yielded no actual pitches and therefore insisted on a proper instrument. She received one at age four and appeared in public within six months. As a child she performed Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, with the Cleveland Orchestra. Two years later she appeared with the New York Youth Symphony. In 2000 she issued her debut recording, Alisa Weilerstein, Cello, on the Angel label.

She attended Columbia University, where she majored in Russian history and received her degree in 2004. Several important prizes and grants accelerated her trajectory, among them the Leonard Bernstein Prize awarded at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in 2006 and, above all, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship—commonly termed a “genius grant”—in 2011. She directed a portion of those funds toward cultivating ties with living composers. Beyond championing new music, she has given premieres of works by Osvaldo Golijov and Lera Auerbach. She has also mastered Elliott Carter’s demanding Cello Concerto, selecting that piece for her first Decca release in 2012.

Within the standard repertoire Weilerstein has appeared as concerto soloist with numerous leading ensembles in the United States and Europe, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, and the Czech Philharmonic, the last of which she joined for a U.S. tour performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. In 2018 she began a multi-year appointment as Artistic Partner of Norway’s Trondheim Soloists. She recorded for Decca between 2012 and 2016, after which she moved to PentaTone Classics; that label issued her 2020 album Bach, containing the composer’s six suites for solo cello. Early in the following decade she released two recordings with pianist Inon Barnatan—Beethoven: Cello Sonatas (2022) and Brahms: Cello Sonatas (2024)—the latter incorporating the performers’ own transcription for cello and piano of the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78. As someone living with Type 1 diabetes, Weilerstein has served as a celebrity spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.