This Summer, Alisa Weilerstein Plays 10 Festivals in U.S. and Europe, Tours with Shanghai Symphony on Three Continents

Distinctive American cellist Alisa Weilerstein – “arguably Yo-Yo Ma’s heiress apparent as sovereign of the American cello” (New York) – makes the rounds of ten festivals in the U.S. and Europe this summer, bookended by trips to China in June and August. After performances of Bach’s Cello Suites in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, she returns to the States to play Dvořák’s Cello Concerto at Caramoor; crosses the Atlantic for the Aldeburgh, Saint-Denis, and Schleswig-Holstein festivals; returns to the U.S. for Wyoming’s Grand Teton Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and La Jolla SummerFest; and reprises the Dvořák concerto on a four-city, three-continent tour with the Shanghai Symphony and conductor Long Yu, starting in Shanghai and taking in Virginia’s Wolf Trap Festival, Illinois’s Ravinia Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival. Besides Bach and Dvořák, she plays concertos by Thomas Larcher at Aldeburgh, Schumann at the Grand Teton Festival, and Barber in Aspen, where she is also joined by her frequent collaborator, pianist Inon Barnatan, to perform a program they have toured this season in the U.S. and Europe centering on a piano trio arrangement of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. After Aspen the cellist goes to San Diego for La Jolla SummerFest, where Barnatan is the new Music Director, to play three varied programs with a host of stellar chamber musicians.

Weilerstein has long been a part of the Caramoor family, having participated in the Evnin Rising Stars program in 1999, served as the festival’s inaugural Artist-in-Residence in 2014, and even gotten married in Caramoor’s Sunken Garden. On opening night this summer she joins conductor Peter Oundjian and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s for Dvořák’s Cello Concerto (June 15). She revisits the Dvořák in August, for her debut with “China’s most venerable orchestra” (New York Times), the Shanghai Symphony, which celebrates its 140th anniversary this season. Led by conductor Long Yu, also the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the China Philharmonic, they perform first in Shanghai, before traveling to the Wolf Trap Festival in Virginia, the Ravinia Festival in Illinois, and Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival (Aug 10-19). Her 2014 Decca recording of Dvořák’s concerto with the late Jirí Belohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic was distinguished by a “take-no-prisoners emotional investment that is evident in every bar” (New York Times).

Having begun just a few seasons ago to publicly perform the entire set of Bach’s six unaccompanied cello suites, Weilerstein has since made the monumental undertaking a regular feature of her schedule. This summer, after a performance of excerpts in Shenzhen (June 6) and the entire set in Guangzhou (June 9), she plays this pinnacle of the Baroque cello repertoire spread out over two concerts at the Aldeburgh Festival (June 19 & 21), followed by complete performances at Paris’s Saint-Denis Festival (June 29) and Hamburg’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival, at the acoustically and architecturally spectacular Elbphilharmonie (July 4). The LA Times has called Weilerstein’s Bach “a true model of the meaning of mastery when it comes to what a string instrument is capable of. … The sound might easily have come from her voice, her lungs and her being. … Her command of the cello, of its sound and of Bach, was consummate.”

The cellist has had a season-long involvement with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, beginning with the string orchestra version of the piece on last fall’s Pentatone release, Transfigured Night, to inaugurate her new, multi-year role as Artistic Partner of Norway’s Trondheim Soloists. She subsequently toured a piano trio version of the same work with Inon Barnatan, Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, and Scottish percussionist Colin Currie, on a program that also included Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio and an arrangement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 for piano trio and percussion. In a review of the program, The Guardian acknowledged the “individual brilliance” of each of the performers, praised the “almost Haydnesque delicacy and finesse” of the Beethoven, and found that in the Shostakovich “Weilerstein’s keening solos gave the slow movement a fierce edge, and the finale was as enigmatic as it is in the orchestral original.” They perform the program at the Aspen Music Festival this summer (July 25).

A handful of other concerto performances punctuate Weilerstein’s summer. In Aldeburgh she joins conductor Edward Gardner and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Thomas Larcher’s Ouroboros for cello and orchestra (June 23). She plays Schumann’s Cello Concerto led by her husband Rafael Payare at the Grand Teton Music Festival (July 19 & 20); and in Aspen joins Robert Spano and the Aspen Festival Orchestra for Barber’s Cello Concerto (July 28). A recent traversal of the Barber with Neeme Järvi leading the Chicago Symphony was praised by the Chicago Tribune for the “pinpoint intonation and…huge, caramel sound” of her “terrific performance.”

Finally, in early August the cellist joins Barnatan once again at SummerFest La Jolla, where he is in his inaugural year as Music Director, for a series of four chamber concerts. Highlights include two movements from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2; an arrangement by composer Thomas Adès of Couperin’s Les Baricades Mistérieuses for a quintet of clarinets and strings; an arrangement for soprano and chamber ensemble of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony; and Weilerstein and Barnatan’s rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, which they recorded on the Decca label in 2015 to widespread acclaim.

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Alisa Weilerstein: summer engagements

June 15
Katonah, NY
Caramoor Opening Night Concert
Orchestra of St. Luke’s / Peter Oundjian
Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 

June 19
Suffolk, UK
Aldeburgh Festival
Blythburgh Church
BACH: Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BWV 1007
BACH: Cello Suite No. 3 in C, BWV 1009
BACH: Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
BACH: Cello Suite No. 6 in D, BWV 1012

June 21
Suffolk, UK
Aldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings Concert Hall
BACH: Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
BACH: Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat, BWV 1010

June 23
Suffolk, UK
Aldeburgh Festival
Snape Maltings Concert Hall
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Edward Gardner
THOMAS LARCHER: Ouroboros for cello and orchestra

June 29
Paris, France
Saint-Denis Festival
Salle de la Légion d’Honneur
BACH: The Complete Cello Suites

July 4
Hamburg, Germany
Schleswig-Holstein Festival
Elbphilharmonie
BACH: The Complete Cello Suites

July 19 & 20
Jackson, WY
Grand Teton Music Festival
Grand Teton Festival Orchestra / Rafael Payare
SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129

July 25
Aspen, CO
Aspen Music Festival
BEETHOVEN: Piano Trio in D, Op. 70, No. 1 “Ghost”
SCHOENBERG: Verklärte Nacht for Piano Trio (trans. Steuermann)
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 15 for Piano Trio and Percussion (trans. Derevianko)
With Inon Barnatan, piano; Sergey Khachatryan, violin; Colin Currie, percussion

July 28
Aspen, CO
Aspen Music Festival
Aspen Festival Orchestra / Robert Spano
BARBER: Cello Concerto, Op. 22

Aug 2-6
La Jolla, CA
SummerFest La Jolla

Aug 2
OPENING NIGHT: The Time Traveler’s Suite
BACH: Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
HANDEL: Trio Sonata for Two Violins and Continuo in G minor, Op. 2 No. 5, 3rd mvt
RAMEAU: “La Poule” from 6 concerts transcrits en sextour and “Entrée de Polymnie” from Les Boreades
COUPERIN (ARR. ADÈS): Les Baricades Mistérieuses
STRAVINSKY: “Serenata” from Suite Italienne
BACH: Finale from Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047
HALVORSEN: Passacaglia (after Handel)
With Ben Beilman, Stefan Jackiw, Erin Keefe, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Timothy Cobb, bass; James Austin Smith, oboe; Valentin Martchev, bassoon; Anthony McGill, clarinet; Frank Renk, bass clarinet; Inon Barnatan, piano 

Aug 3
SONGS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
MESSIAEN: Movement VII from Quatuor pour la fin du temps
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 (arr. for soprano and chamber ensemble)
With Susanna Phillips, soprano; Ben Beilman, Stefan Jackiw, Erin Keefe, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Kenneth Olsen, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; James Austin Smith, oboe; Anthony McGill, clarinet; Valentin Martchev, bassoon; Dustin Donahue, percussion; Conrad Tao, harmonium and piano; Inon Barnatan, piano; Osmo Vänskä, conductor 

Aug 4
ANCIENT VOICES
CRUMB: Voice of the Whale
RACHMANINOFF: Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor, Op. 19
With Rose Lombardo, flute; Conrad Tao and Inon Barnatan, piano 

Aug 6
REFLECTION
ARENSKY: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35
SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 15 (arr. for Piano Trio and Percussion)
With Erin Keefe, Sergey Khachatryan, violin; Yura Lee, viola; Kenneth Olsen, cello; Inon Barnatan, piano and celeste; red fish blue fish, percussion

Aug 10-19
Shanghai Symphony Tour
Long Yu, conductor
DVOŘÁK: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Aug 10: Shanghai, China
Aug 14: Vienna, VA (Filene Center; Wolf Trap Music Festival)
Aug 16: Highland Park, IL (Ravinia Music Festival)
Aug 19: Edinburgh, Scotland (Usher Hall; Edinburgh International Festival) 

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© 21C Media Group, June 2019