Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment, and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship in 2011. Today, her career is truly global in scope. While maintaining a deep engagement with the standards of the repertoire, she is also dedicated to expanding the cello literature, bringing new works to life through a wealth of solo and concerto commissions. Her multi-season solo cello project, “FRAGMENTS,” comprises six hour-long programs that weave together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works. In 2025–26, she continues the series at Carnegie Hall and San Diego’s Jacobs Music Hall, as well as giving the European, Czech, German, and UK premieres, the latter at London’s Southbank Centre, where she undertakes a fall and winter artistic residency. Weilerstein has also premiered important new concertos written for her by six leading contemporary composers: Pascal Dusapin, Matthias Pintscher, Joan Tower, Gabriela Ortiz, Thomas Larcher, and Richard Blackford, the last three in the 2024–25 season, with the Ortiz and Blackford works recorded for Platoon and Pentatone, respectively. In the 2025–26 season, she plays the UK premiere of Ortiz’s Dzonot with Marin Alsop and the Philharmonia Orchestra, before reprising the same work with the San Diego Symphony and performing Tower’s concerto with the commissioning Detroit Symphony. Other 2025–26 highlights include performances with the Atlanta Symphony and Nathalie Stutzmann; the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by the cellist’s husband, Rafael Payare; Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Berlin, both conducted by Alan Gilbert; and many more.
Weilerstein’s bestselling Pentatone recording of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello was nominated for a 2021 Gramophone Award, while her insights into his first G-major prelude, as captured in Vox’s YouTube series, have been viewed more than 2.3 million times. As featured in a Gramophone cover story, in 2022 she released the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Cello and Piano with frequent collaborator Inon Barnatan. Her celebrated discography also includes definitive recordings of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic, which topped the U.S. classical chart, and the Elgar and Elliott Carter cello concertos with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, named “Recording of the Year 2013” by BBC Music. Born in 1982, Weilerstein discovered her love for the cello at just two and a half and made her professional concert debut at 13 with The Cleveland Orchestra. She is married to conductor Rafael Payare, with whom she has two young children.
February 2026
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSOA by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
