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Performances > Joy and Passion > Artist Information - Alisia Weilerstein, cello and Axel Strauss, violin
Alisia Weilerstein, cello and Axel Strauss, violin 
Since her first public concert at the age of 4, Alisa Weilerstein has performed with the nation's top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals. She is also dedicated to performing chamber music, having grown up in a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age. Following a performance of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, "Cellists twice or thrice Weilerstein's age would be hard-pressed to match the concentrated beauty and power of this young dynamo's playing." Ms. Weilerstein is already continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Houston Symphony. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, Orchestre National de France, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She makes regular appearances at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Bad Kissingen, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Vail, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Verbier Festival. Following her performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations with the National Symphony Orchestra under Peter Oundjian at the Kennedy Center this season, the Washington Post wrote that Ms. Weilerstein played “with a rare mixture of elegance and wit, forged through the faster variations with dancing energy, sang out throbbing slow melodies as though they were Italian opera and even made the virtuosic runs and pyrotechnics toward the end of the piece musically, as well as technically, interesting.” Also during the 2005-06 season, Ms. Weilerstein gave acclaimed performances with the Bournemouth Symphony under Marin Alsop and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with Jeffrey Kahane. This summer Ms. Weilerstein will participate in Spoleto Festival USA, the Green Music Festival, Caramoor, the Vail Valley Music Festival, and the Skaneatelas Festival. Ms. Weilerstein was recently named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she will receive at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany. In January 2007 Ms. Weilerstein will make her New York Philharmonic subscription debut performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting. Other highlights of her 2006-07 season include recitals with violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Lilya Zilberstein at Carnegie Hall, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Barbican in London. She also performs as soloist with the Seattle Symphony under Asher Fisch, Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop, and the Moscow State Symphony as part of their U.S. tour, among other engagements. She also gives a U.S. tour with Gil Shaham and Friends that will include a performance at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Abroad she performs with the NDR Hamburg Symphony under Semyon Bychkov in Germany, and with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel in Tokyo. Ms. Weilerstein has given recitals in music centers across the U.S., including Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco. She performed at The Louvre in her Paris recital debut in September 1999. Other notable engagements have included an eight-city tour of Japan, featuring a Suntory Hall performance in March 1999, a concert tour of Australia, and Florida tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2000 and 2002. Ms. Weilerstein was the recipient in 2000 of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) "Rising Stars" recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000-01, Ms. Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Ms. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics' "Debut" series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvorák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janácek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla. Born in 1982, Alisa began playing the cello at age 4 and performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. In 1998, violinist Axel Strauss became the first German artist ever to win the Naumburg Violin Award, and in the seasons since, he has been equally acclaimed for his virtuosity and his musical sensitivity. The Salt Lake Tribune praised his well-rounded artistry by saying, “Strauss quickly established that he is a virtuoso to be reckoned with. But amid his technical acumen, there was a genuine musician. His interpretive prowess was delightful.” Mr. Strauss, who has been residing in the United States since 1996, maintains a busy performance schedule and serves as Professor of Violin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In January 2007 at the Conservatory he performed the World Premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’ “Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby.” He has been heard on concert stages throughout Europe since his recital debut in Hamburg in 1988 and his concerto debut with the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic two years later. At the age of seventeen he won the silver medal at the Enescu Competition in Romania and has been recognized with many other awards, including top prizes in the Bach, Wieniawski and Kocian competitions. After violin studies in Germany with Prof. Petru Munteanu he began working with Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School and became her teaching assistant in 1998. He has also worked with Itzhak Perlman, Felix Galimir, and Ruggiero Ricci, and at the Marlboro Music Festival with Mitsuko Uchida, Andras Schiff, and Bruno Canino. Mr. Strauss made his American debut at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and his first of many New York concerts was presented at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1998. He has given recitals in major US cities and has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Hamburg Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic and the Budapest Philharmonic. He has worked with conductors such as Maxim Shostakovitch, Rico Saccani, Joseph Silverstein, Gerhardt Zimmermann and Pedro Halffter. Mr. Strauss frequently performs at music festivals in the States and abroad, including the Moab Music Festival in Utah, the International Music Academy and Festival in Seoul in Korea, and the Kammermusiktage Mettlach in Germany. His recordings include the Violin Concerto and the Sonatas Opus 120 by Brahms, the Duo for Violin and Cello by Kodaly and a selection of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words,” arranged for violin and piano. Most recently a recording of a recital at New York’s Steinway Hall has been released on DVD. Axel Strauss performs on an outstanding violin by J.F. Pressenda, Turin 1845, on extended loan through the generous efforts of the Stradivari Society in Chicago. Please visit www.axelstrauss.com for more information. |
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