Classical-music insiders were quick to peg Alisa Weilerstein as an unusually promising talent in her teens, but the 26-year-old cellist’s already fast-rising career has become turbo-charged in the past three years.
In 2006, she joined famed violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Lilya Zilberstein for a high-profile series of concerts in London, Paris and New York. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in January 2007, and this season she is appearing for the first time with the Boston and Chicago symphonies.
“At 26, she’s arguably Yo-Yo Ma’s heiress apparent as sovereign of the American cello,” Justin Davidson, New York magazine’s music critic, wrote in a September review.
That’s rarefied praise. But it is deserved, based on the natural, unabashed sensuality and bold, self- assured technique she has displayed thus far in her career, including multiple visits to Colorado.
She has performed at least five times at the Vail International Music Festival and is scheduled to be back this summer with the Philadelphia Orchestra. And as a former student at the Aspen Music Festival and School, she has made frequent appearances there.
Weilerstein first joined the Colorado Symphony in January 2001 at age 18, making The Denver Post’s list of the top 10 classical concerts that season. She subsequently returned two more times, most recently in 2005.
When she comes back next week for three concerts with the symphony in Boulder and Denver, the cellist will serve as soloist for a piece that has done as much as anything to spark her increased attention — Osvaldo Golijov’s “Azul.”
The celebrated composer wrote the original version of the work for Ma, who premiered it with the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 2006. But Golijov decided to revise it significantly for performances a year later at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
Weilerstein was introduced to Golijov in 2005 by mutual friends — clarinetist Todd Palmer and members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, whom she met in 2003 at the Spoleto Festival USA.
He passed along his solo cello work, “Omaramor,” which she has since played at nearly all of her recitals. The cellist sent him a recording of a 2006 performance of the piece, and, soon thereafter, Golijov asked her to premiere the overhauled version of “Azul.”
“Needless to say, I was over the moon about it, because to work with Osvaldo and to play his music was something that I was so happy to do,” she said from her New York City home.
The two worked extensively on the revisions, spending a week together at the Banff Centre in Alberta, where Golijov was composer-in-residence in the summer of 2007.
“The piece had problems and, of course, Alisa brought her energy to it,” Golijov said in a Denver Post interview last year. “I wanted to do a piece that was like a meditation in nature, but I felt it was just boring.
“One thing I did not change is that I did not want to have the hero concerto or the virtuoso concerto. I still wanted to maintain the meditative character, but I thought that even if there is no hero, there has to at least be a quest.
“That state of rapturous contemplation, so to speak, has to be earned. You cannot just start from there.”
In collaboration with Weilerstein, he devised a new first movement that has a “searching” quality that he believes was missing previously and extended the cadenza.
Golijov was still making changes just a day and a half before the performances, resulting in what Weilerstein called an “exhilarating and somewhat terrifying ride.”
The cellist has played “Azul” three times since, including a concert in July at the Aspen Music Festival. Following those with the Colorado Symphony, she has a dozen more performances scheduled, including three in April with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Although music critics are falling over themselves to praise her recent work, Weilerstein is careful to not let herself get swept up in the effusion. Her parents, both professional musicians, as well, long ago cautioned her about being overinfluenced by raves or pans.
“Of course, I appreciate great reviews, and I’m happy to see that,” she said. “Who wouldn’t be? At the same time, I have to keep myself grounded.”
Weilerstein acknowledged that the increased attention has put increased pressure on her, but it’s nothing she is not used to.
“I started out very, very young,” she said. “I started playing professionally when I was 14, and I really built a foundation by going very, very slowly and not doing too much at first — a very sort of step-by-step increase in concerts.
“The momentum shift happened when I was 24, so I already had 10 years of experience behind me, and I felt very prepared. I felt grounded enough and confident enough that I could do this with a lot of excitement instead of nervousness.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein, conductor Jeffrey Kahane, Colorado Symphony
Symphonic Music. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Macky Auditorium, University of Colorado at Boulder; 7:30 p.m. Jan. 16 and 17, Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Weilerstein joins the orchestra for a performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Azul,” which premiered in its revised version in 2007. Also taking part will be: Michael Ward Bergeman, hyperaccordion, and Jamey Haddad and Keita Ogawa, percussion. Thursday, $12-$52, 303-492-8008 or . Friday and Saturday, $15-$73, 303-623-7876 or .
