Alisa Weilerstein begins Caramoor residency on Thursday
Beginning on Thursday, July 31, MacArthur Fellow Alisa Weilerstein serves as Artist-in-Residence at the Caramoor International Music Festival, which devotes its final weekend to a trio of concerts celebrating her artistry as a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral soloist. Thus the cellist – one of ten nominees for Gramophone’s 2014 Artist of the Year award – not only gives a solo recital, juxtaposing works by Kodály, Golijov, and Britten with unaccompanied Bach (July 31), but also partners the Ariel Quartet in string quintets by Schubert and Boccherini (Aug 1), and, with Pablo Heras-Casado and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in the festival’s grand finale, offers audiences the chance to hear, live, the interpretation of Elgar’s Cello Concerto that won her BBC Music magazine’s coveted “2013 Recording of the Year” award (Aug 3).
Weilerstein begins her residency at Caramoor with a solo recital anchored by Kodály’s Sonata for solo cello, a signature work in which the New York Times finds her “staggering.” Together with Bach’s Third Cello Suite and the Britten miniature Tema “Sacher,” her program is completed by Omaramor by Osvaldo Golijov, with whom she has worked extensively; indeed, the Argentinean composer rewrote his Azul for cello and orchestra especially for her season-opening appearance at the Mostly Mozart Festival. Weilerstein’s recording of Omaramor can be heard on the forthcoming Solo, her compilation of unaccompanied 20th-century cello music scheduled for U.S. release by Decca in October, which again has the Kodály sonata as its centerpiece. Her account of the Kodály is also captured in the summer movie If I Stay, an August 22 release that marks her feature film debut.
Elgar’s Cello Concerto is another piece that has already figured prominently in Weilerstein’s career. Her live rendition with the Berlin Philharmonic and Daniel Barenboim impressed the New York Times as “incandescent,” while The Guardian’s Tom Service declared it “the most technically complete and emotionally devastating performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto that I have ever heard live”; the concert was televised to an audience of millions worldwide, and subsequently issued on DVD. For her award-winning debut release as an exclusive Decca artist, Weilerstein – the first cellist to be signed by the prestigious label in more than 30 years – reunited with Barenboim at the Staatskapelle Berlin, pairing Elgar’s concerto with Elliot Carter’s. For her final, festival-closing performance at Caramoor, which will be broadcast live on WQXR, she reprises the concerto with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under the leadership of Pablo Heras-Casado.
Alisa Weilerstein at Caramoor
July 31
Katonah, NY
Caramoor Center for Music & Arts
Solo recital
Britten: Tema “Sacher”
Golijov: Omaramor
Bach: Cello Suite No. 3 in C, BWV 1009
Kodály: Sonata for Solo Cello
Aug 1
Katonah, NY
Caramoor Center for Music & Arts
Concert with the Ariel Quartet
Boccherini: String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5
Schubert: String Quintet in C, D. 956
Aug 3
Katonah, NY
Caramoor Center for Music & Arts
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
Orchestra of St. Luke’s / Pablo Heras-Casado
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©21C Media Group, July 2014