Alisa Weilerstein premieres 12 new “FRAGMENTS” commissions in San Diego & Spoleto; gives NY premieres of FRAGMENTS 2 & 3 at Carnegie Hall; premieres new Larcher & Blackford concertos with NY & Czech Philharmonics; & more this spring
(January 2025) — The months ahead represent some of the most compelling of Alisa Weilerstein’s career to date. A champion of contemporary music known for her “stylistic sensitivity, verve and spontaneous delight in discovery” (The Guardian), the MacArthur award-winning cellist premieres twelve new works in her multi-season solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” with the world premieres of FRAGMENTS 3 at San Diego’s Jacobs Music Center (April 8) and of FRAGMENTS 5 & 6 at the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA. These festival concerts form part of her first account of the complete cycle (May 27–June 1), and follow her return to Carnegie Hall for the New York premieres of FRAGMENTS 2 (Jan 21) and FRAGMENTS 3 (May 20). As the dedicatee of three major new concerto commissions, she also gives the world and European premieres of Thomas Larcher’s new concerto with the New York Philharmonic (April 3–5) and Bavarian Radio Symphony (June 5 & 6); the world premiere of Richard Blackford’s with the Czech Philharmonic (Feb 5–7); and – in the wake of its successful Los Angeles, New York, and Colombia debuts – the European premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s Dzonot with Spain’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Jan 23–26). These engagements follow the recent release of her new Brahms sonatas album; recorded with pianist Inon Barnatanfor Pentatone, this was Gramophone’s “Editor’s Choice” for “Recording of the Month” in December 2024.
“FRAGMENTS” premieres in San Diego, Charleston, & at Carnegie Hall
Weilerstein is currently poised to embark on one of the most remarkable and intensive phases of “FRAGMENTS,” with the New York premiere of FRAGMENTS 2 at Carnegie’sZankel Hall (Jan 21); the world and New York premieres of FRAGMENTS 3 at San Diego’s Jacobs Music Center (April 8) and Zankel Hall (May 20), respectively; and a first rendition of the complete cycle at the 2025 Spoleto Festival USA. Having enjoyed a close relationship with the Charleston-based festival for the past 15 years, she will give the world premiere performances of FRAGMENTS 5 & 6 at Spoleto during a weeklong residency that sees her perform all six programs of the series in succession for the first time (May 27–June 1).
The cellist first conceived “FRAGMENTS” during the early pandemic lockdowns, when she set out to reimagine the concert experience. Comprising six programs, each an hour long, the series interweaves the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works in an immersive, multisensory production. The commissioned composers are Andy Akiho, Courtney Bryan, Chen Yi, Alan Fletcher, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov, Joseph Hallman, Gabriel Kahane, Daniel Kidane, Thomas Larcher, Tania León, Allison Loggins-Hull, Missy Mazzoli, Gerard McBurney, Jessie Montgomery, Reinaldo Moya, Jeffrey Mumford, Matthias Pintscher, Gity Razaz, Gili Schwarzman, Caroline Shaw, Carlos Simon, Gabriella Smith, Ana Sokolović, Joan Tower, Mathilde Wantenaar, and Paul Wiancko. Ranging in age from 26 to 83, they are similarly diverse with respect to race, gender, geography, compositional approach, musical style, and stage of career. To all 27, Weilerstein gave the same compositional prompt, asking each to write ten minutes of music in two or three standalone fragments. She then integrated the new works with Bach’s music to create the six installments of “FRAGMENTS,” each of which traces a powerful and wholly original emotional arc. To help audiences connect with the music, she collaborated with artistic producer and advisor Hanako Yamaguchi, director Elkhanah Pulitzer, costume designer Carlos J. Soto, and lighting and set designer Seth Reiser. Weilerstein explains:
“At its core, ‘FRAGMENTS’ is about connection. I wanted to find new ways of connecting audience with performer, the familiar with the new, and composers of varying generations and backgrounds with one another.”
Since premiering FRAGMENTS 1 & 2 at Toronto’s Koerner Hall in early 2023, she has performed one or both programs at numerous prestigious North American venues, including Carnegie Hall, where FRAGMENTS 1 showed her to be “a cellist of explosive emotional energy” (The New York Times), and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where she premiered FRAGMENTS 4 last April. This prompted the UK’s Financial Times to marvel:
“As Weilerstein skilfully and with her customary emotional intelligence started to relax into this fiendishly hard music, the intensity did not let up. There was everything here; sonic colours and textures that brought to my mind a fractal in multi-dimensions: history, future, the now. … A project like this, humble yet bursting with human creativity and imagination, makes us … think: all is not lost.”
World & European premieres of concertos by Blackford, Larcher, & Ortiz
A dedicated new music exponent who previously premiered important new concertos by Pascal Dusapin, Matthias Pintscher, and Joan Tower, Weilerstein brings to life three more concertos of which she is the dedicatee this season. Later this month, she joins Spain’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and Music Director Thierry Fischer for the European premiere of Dzonot (2024), a Los Angeles Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Philharmonia Orchestra, and São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra co-commission from Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz (Jan 23–26). This follows the concerto’s world, New York, and Colombian premieres, which Weilerstein gave with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic last fall, when their Carnegie Hall performance drew glowing praise. The New York Times found the cellist “characteristically undaunted and passionate, adapting to each sound environment with ease,” and Musical America affirmed:
“In Alisa Weilerstein, the concerto … has a brilliant advocate. She discharged Ortiz’s furious passagework with aplomb, brought gorgeous tone to the highly chromatic yet lyrical melodic lines and dazzled with double stops and other showmanship in two demanding cadenzas.”
Weilerstein’s next world premiere follows early next month, when she gives the first performances of Richard Blackford’s new concerto – a work inspired by the all-too-timely topic of California’s wildfires – in Prague, with Tomáš Netopil and the commissioning Czech Philharmonic (Feb 5–7). A British composer who has been recognized with an Ivor Award and an Emmy nomination, Blackford writes:
“Underlying my cello concerto is the story about how people from the small town of Paradise, California, came together to help those whose homes were destroyed by the wildfires known as The Devil Winds of Santa Ana in 2018. … Their story of compassion and resilience motivates the four movements.”
The cellist’s third new concerto is by Diapason d’Or–winning Austrian composer Thomas Larcher, whose “extraordinary, arresting, communicative music is one of this century’s wonders” (The Times of London). She and the composer have already worked together extensively; he is a contributor to “FRAGMENTS,” and she frequently performs his earlier concerto, Ouroboros, which she recorded for ECM with the Munich Chamber Orchestra. This spring, she gives the world and European premieres of his new concerto – a co-commission of the New York Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – with the New York Philharmonic under Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider (April 3–5) and the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Alan Gilbert (June 5 & 6), respectively. While in Munich, she also joins members of the orchestra for an evening of chamber music titled: “Watch This Space: Alisa Weilerstein & Friends” (June 4). Weilerstein says:
“I am deeply honored to premiere two more extraordinary concertos in the coming months. Richard Blackford’s concerto is a profoundly personal work that resonates powerfully with the urgency of our times. Thomas Larcher’s concerto is a masterpiece of profound depth and completeness. Performing these remarkable works with such esteemed orchestras, whom I am fortunate to call friends, is both a joy and an honor.”
Concerts in San Diego, Montreal, & Birmingham, UK; recital in Switzerland
Weilerstein’s remaining orchestral highlights include performances of Dvořák’s concerto, with England’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and her brother, Joshua Weilerstein (March 12), and of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia concertante, with Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and her husband, Music Director Rafael Payare, in concerts that will be recorded for future release (Feb 12 & 13). To complete her concert season, she reunites with Payare at the San Diego Symphony for the Cello Concerto by South Korea’s Unsuk Chin (May 10).
Beyond the symphony hall, Weilerstein gives a solo recital at Switzerland’s Zauberklang Festival, where her program features Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello and Osvaldo Golijov’s Omaramor (March 16). Both are signature works heard on her 2015 recording Solo, which offers an “uncompromising and pertinent portrait of the cello repertoire of our time” (ResMusica, France).
Recent Brahms album release
This past November brought the release by Pentatone of Weilerstein’s most recent album, an all-Brahms collection recorded with her regular piano partner, Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan. Capturing their accounts of the composer’s two sonatas for cello, as well as their own arrangement for cello of his First Violin Sonata, this was welcomed as “a wonderful set of Brahms’s cello sonatas, full of individual personality and insight, … all played and recorded beautifully” by Gramophone.
Alisa Weilerstein: upcoming engagements
Jan 21
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall)
FRAGMENTS 2 (New York premiere)
Jan 23–26
Valladolid, Spain
Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León / Thierry Fischer
Gabriela ORTIZ: Dzonot (European premiere of L.A. Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Philharmonia Orchestra, and São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra co-commission)
Feb 5–7
Prague, Czech Republic
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra / Tomas Netopil
Richard BLACKFORD: Cello Concerto (world premiere of Czech Philharmonic commission)
Feb 12 & 13
Montreal, QC
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal / Rafael Payare
PROKOFIEV: Sinfonia concertante
March 12
Birmingham, UK
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Joshua Weilerstein
DVOŘÁK: Cello Concerto
March 16
Bürglen, Switzerland
Zauberklang Festival
Solo recital:
BRITTEN: Tema “Sacher”
GOLIJOV: Omaramor
BACH: Cello Suite No. 3
KODÁLY: Sonata for Solo Cello
April 3–5
New York, NY
New York Philharmonic / Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider
Thomas LARCHER: Concerto (world premiere of New York Philharmonic & Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra co-commission)
April 8
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
FRAGMENTS 3 (world premiere)
May 10
San Diego, CA
San Diego Symphony / Rafael Payare
Unsuk CHIN: Cello Concerto
May 20
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall)
FRAGMENTS 3 (New York premiere)
May 27–June 1
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
“FRAGMENTS 1–6” (featuring world premieres of Nos. 5 & 6)
June 4
Munich, Germany
“Watch This Space: Alisa Weilerstein & Friends”
With members of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Chamber concert
June 5 & 6
Munich, Germany
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Alan Gilbert
Thomas LARCHER: Concerto (European premiere of New York Philharmonic & Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra co-commission)