Alisa Weilerstein’s summer 2025 launches with complete FRAGMENTS 1–6 performances at Spoleto USA, including the world premieres of parts 5 & 6 (May 26–31)

(May 2025) — MacArthur Award-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein’s summer season begins at Spoleto Festival USA, where she performs all six parts of her groundbreaking multisensory solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” for the first time, with the world premieres of parts 5 & 6 on the final day (May 26–31). Later in the summer, she joins NYO2, led by conductor Rafael Payare, for performances of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 at Carnegie Hall (July 27) and the Edinburgh International Festival, where the orchestra makes its European debut (Aug 3). Other upcoming highlights include Payare-led performances of Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto with the San Diego Symphony (May 10) and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl (Sep 9); the European premiere of Thomas Larcher’s cello concerto, returning into darkness, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich under the baton of Alan Gilbert (June 5, 6); Brahms’s Double Concerto at the Bravo! Vail festival with violinist Blake Pouliot and conductor Matthias Pintscher leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (June 21); Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 at Germany’s Kissinger Sommer Internationales Musikfestival with theCzech Philharmonic led by Tomáš Netopil (July 5); performances with longtime collaborator Inon Barnatan at the Lanaudière Festival (July 15) and California’s La Jolla Music Society SummerFest (Aug 8–13); a return to the Aspen Music Festival to play Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto led by Ludovic Morlot (Aug 17); and a performance of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto with Paavo Järvi and his Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich at Romania’s Enescu Festival (Sep 2).

Coming up in 2025–26, Weilerstein embarks on a year-long residency at London’s Southbank Centre, which in the fall and winter sees her give the UK premieres of the first two parts of FRAGMENTS (Sep 27) and perform piano trios by Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven with Barnatan and violinist Stefan Jackiw, her partners on a recent recording of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto (Nov 30).

“FRAGMENTS” at Spoleto Festival USA (May 26–31) and beyond

In a recent review of FRAGMENTS 4 in Washington, DC, the Financial Times lauded Weilerstein’s project in glowing terms:

“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.”

FRAGMENTS weaves together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 new commissions to make six unique multisensory programs, each an hour long, for solo cello. All six programs are performed without pauses, applause or program details. As the cellist describes the evolution of the project:

“In early December of 2020, during one of the many lockdowns that stretched through the Covid-19 pandemic, I found myself scribbling ideas on paper, imagining the moment we could gather again in the concert hall. I longed to create an experience that felt visceral, emotional, and deeply personal – one that spoke to the world we live in while embracing the intellectual and aesthetic depth that makes concert music such a singular form of human expression. But more than anything, I wanted to strip away expectation. What if we could simply listen first?”

Tracing a powerful and wholly original emotional arc, each program embraces a wide variety of compositional voices, the composers being diverse with respect to age, race, gender, geography, compositional approach, musical style and stage of career. Weilerstein asked all of them to write multi-movement pieces for solo cello and to kindly grant her permission to interweave them with one another, as well as the movements of the complete Bach Cello Suites. But as she adds: “FRAGMENTS is not about the people who write music; it is about the music itself. It is about how seemingly disparate voices can come together to form something new – something unified and whole.” The first four parts of the work have been premiered separately over the course of multiple seasons and in different venues, while the premieres of parts 5 and 6 will take place, as part of the first complete performance of the whole project, at Spoleto Festival USA. This pace has allowed the project to evolve through the process of performance, aided by the continuing collaboration of director Elkhanah Pulitzer, lighting and set designer Seth Reiser, costume designer Molly Irelan, and artistic advisor Hanako Yamaguchi. Weilerstein says:

“As the project evolved, so did its shape and meaning. The six Fragments now reflect different stages of life and our evolving relationship with artistic expression. Fragments 1, Wonder, embodies innocence, curiosity, and the fragile excitement of discovery. Fragments 2, Tumult, is restless and rebellious, driven by upheaval and raw energy. Fragments 3, Emergence, captures transformation – the struggle and exhilaration of becoming. Fragments 4, Labyrinth, is intricate and searching, tracing a path through complexity and reflection. Fragments 5, Lament, holds space for sorrow, loss, and the depth of human longing. Finally, Fragments 6, Radiance, is a culmination – a nuanced view of the world that remains optimistic and benevolent, casting light on everything that came before.”

Leading up to the Spoleto performances, which also feature a conversation about the project with Emmy Award-winning CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner (May 27), Weilerstein performs FRAGMENTS 3 in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (May 20), having presented part 2 there in January. The following month at the UK’s Aldeburgh Festival she gives a FRAGMENTS-inspired recital that intersperses solo cello works by Bach and Kodály with works by FRAGMENTS composers Joan Tower and Daniel Kidane (June 27), before giving the UK premieres of FRAGMENTS 1 & 2 during her upcoming 2025–26 residency at London’s Southbank Centre (Sep 27).

Concertos: Shostakovich, Dvořák, Chin, Larcher, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Lutosławski

Weilerstein’s summer season is filled with high-profile appearances in both the U.S. and Europe and in settings ranging from chamber music festivals to solo concerto performances, with a number of the latter conducted by the cellist’s husband, Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare. In summer of 2022, Weilerstein performed with Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States (NYO-USA); this summer, under Payare’s baton, she joins NYO2 – the companion program for younger musicians, especially those from communities underrepresented in classical music – for performances of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 at Carnegie Hall (July 27) and the Edinburgh International Festival, where the orchestra makes its European debut (Aug 3). Weilerstein and Payare reunite at the end of the summer at the Hollywood Bowl, where he leads her in a performance of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Sep 9). As an upbeat to these summer performances, Weilerstein performs Unsuk Chin’s Cello Concerto with Payare and the San Diego Symphony, where he is in his transformative sixth season as Music Director (May 10).

Immediately following her Spoleto FRAGMENTS performances, Weilerstein crosses the Atlantic for the European premiere of Thomas Larcher’s cello concerto, returning into darkness, with the Bavarian Symphony Radio Orchestra (BSRO) conducted by Alan Gilbert (June 5, 6). Larcher, whose music has been praised as “one of this century’s wonders” (The Times, UK), composed the work for Weilerstein, who gave the premiere this past March with the co-commissioning New York Philharmonic.

Weilerstein has enjoyed a long collaborative relationship with composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher, who wrote his cello concerto un despertar for her in 2017. Pintscher will be on the podium for Weilerstein’s performance at Bravo! Vail this summer, when she joins rising-star violinist Blake Pouliot and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for Brahms’s Double Concerto (June 21). Rounding out the cellist’s concerto appearances are three other engagements: a performance of Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No. 1 at Germany’s Kissinger Sommer Internationales Musikfestival with her frequent collaborators and recording partners, the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Tomáš Netopil (July 5); Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto led by Ludovic Morlot at the Aspen Music Festival (Aug 17); and Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto under the baton of Paavo Järvi, leading his Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich at Romania’s Enescu Festival in Bucharest (Sep 2).

Chamber performances

The night before she premieres the Larcher concerto in Munich, Weilerstein is joined by members of the BRSO for an all-Shostakovich chamber program. They pair the composer’s youthful Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor with his Symphony No. 15, his final work in that genre, arranged for Piano Trio and percussion by Russian pianist Viktor Derevianko (June 4).

Longtime friends and collaborators, Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan released a recording of all five of Beethoven’s cello sonatas – which document all three periods of his oeuvre – on the Pentatone label in 2022. The Classic Review said of the album:

“There is a notable joie de vivre and improvisatory freedom in these readings that recognize and celebrate the newness of Beethoven’s creation. Weilerstein’s nuanced bowing and vibrato, as well as the ever-expanding palette of colors and articulation from both players also gives the listener a strong sense of the composer’s compositional growth.”

This summer, they perform this complete cycle of sonatas at Quebec’s Lanaudière Festival (July 15), and later in the summer meet up again for chamber music performances at California’s La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, where Barnatan serves as Music Director. They are joined by violinists Noah Bendix-Balgley and Stefan Jackiwand violist Teng Li for Dvořák’s Piano Quintet; Weilerstein plays Arensky’s two-cello String Quartet with Li, violinist Vilde Frang, and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt; and she performs Brahms’s Sonata No. 1 in E minor with Inon Barnatan, as recorded on their latest Pentatone album, released last fall (Aug 8–13).

“FRAGMENTS” for solo cello

Alisa Weilerstein, project creator & performer
Elkhanah Pulitzer, director
Hanako Yamaguchi, artistic producer & advisor
Seth Reiser, set & lighting design
Molly Irelan, costume design

Featured composers:
Andy Akiho, J.S. Bach, 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, Paul Wiancko

Leadership support for “FRAGMENTS” is generously provided by Joan and Irwin Jacobs. Patron support for “FRAGMENTS” is provided by Judy and Tony Evnin, Clara Wu Tsai, and Paul Sekhri. “FRAGMENTS” has been made possible with commissioning support from the San Diego Symphony, UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures, Carnegie Hall, Celebrity Series of Boston, and the Royal Conservatory of Music for the 21C Festival. Special thanks to Martha Gilmer for her leadership and counsel, and to Celebrity Series of Boston and Aspen Music Festival and School for their in-kind contributions.

Alisa Weilerstein: summer 2025 engagements

May 10
San Diego, CA
Jacobs Music Center
San Diego Symphony / Rafael Payare
Unsuk CHIN: Cello Concerto

May 20
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall)
FRAGMENTS 3

May 26
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
FRAGMENTS 1 & 2

May 27
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
College of Charleston Simons Center Recital Hall
In conversation with Martha Teichner

May 28
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
FRAGMENTS 3

May 29
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
FRAGMENTS 4

May 31
Charleston, SC
Spoleto Festival USA
FRAGMENTS 5 & 6 (world premieres)

June 4
Munich, Germany
Musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
SHOSTAKOVICH: Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 15 (arr. Viktor Derevianko)

June 5, 6
Munich, Germany
Herkulessaal Der Residenz
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Alan Gilbert
Thomas LARCHER: returning into darkness (European premiere)

June 21
Vail, CO
Bravo! Vail
Blake Pouliot, violin
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Matthias Pintscher
BRAHMS: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello

June 27
Suffolk, UK
Aldeburgh Festival
Joan TOWER: Commission For Alisa
J.S. BACH: Cello Suite No. 3 in C
Daniel KIDANE: Sarabande Parts 1–3
KODÁLY: Sonata for Solo Cello

July 5
Bad Kissingen, Germany
Kissinger Sommer Internationales Musikfestival
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra / Tomáš Netopil
SAINT-SAËNS: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor

July 15
Joliette, QC
Festival de Lanaudière
Inon Barnatan, piano
BEETHOVEN: Sonatas 1–5 for cello and piano

July 27
New York, NY
Carnegie Hall
NYO2 / Rafael Payare
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Concerto No. 1

Aug 3
Edinburgh, Scotland
Edinburgh International Festival
Usher Hall
NYO2 / Rafael Payare
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Concerto No. 1

Aug 8
La Jolla, CA
La Jolla Music Society SummerFest
Inon Barnatan, piano
Noah Bendix-Balgley, Stefan Jackiw, violins
Teng Li, viola
DVOŘÁK: Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81

Aug 10
La Jolla, CA
La Jolla Music Society SummerFest
Vilde Frang, violin
Teng Li, viola
Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
ARENSKY: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35

Aug 13
La Jolla, CA
La Jolla Music Society SummerFest
Inon Barnatan, piano
BRAHMS: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor

Aug 17
Aspen, CO
Aspen Music Festival
Ludovic Morlot, conductor
LUTOSŁAWSKI: Cello Concerto

Sep 2
Bucharest, Romania
Enescu Festival
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Järvi
SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Concerto No. 2

Sep 9
Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood Bowl
Rafael Payare, conductor
Los Angeles Philharmonic
DVOŘÁK: Cello Concerto in B minor

Sep 27
London, UK
Southbank Centre
FRAGMENTS 1 & 2 (UK premiere)

Nov 30
London, UK
Southbank Centre
Stefan Jackiw, violin
Inon Barnatan, piano
RACHMANINOFF: Trio élégiaque No. 1 in G minor
RAVEL: Piano Trio in A minor
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, “Archduke”