Alisa Weilerstein

The daughter of professional, touring musicians Donald Weilerstein and Vivian Horni, Alisa Weilerstein started trying to play along with them on a cello made out of a cereal box by her grandmother when she was two, and by four she was taking lessons on the real thing. She made her debut with her the Cleveland Orchestra when she was 13 and a few years later was playing Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Orchestra, before nurturing her prodigious talent on the esteemed young artist programme ECHO Rising Stars recital series and with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society.

She also played with her parents as the Weilerstein Trio and was soon touring the world playing over 140 concerts a year and taking on works by the likes of Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Rossini. Majorly inspired by the English cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, she achieved a lifelong goal when she performed with Du Pre's husband, conductor Daniel Barenboim, and the Berlin Philharmonic in 2010, and the collaboration turned into the award-winning album 'Elgar & Carter' in 2013.

Other highly acclaimed works for Decca Records included the chillingly beautiful 'Dvorak' in 2014, the joint album 'Rachmaninov, Chopin: Cello Concertos' with pianist Inon Barnatan and her work with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on 'Shostakovich: Cello Concertos' in 2016. Well established as a master virtuoso in her field, she has also championed the work of modern composers such as Lera Aurbach, Pascal Dusapin and Matthias Pintscher and taught at the El Sistema music institute in Venezuela. Presented with the McArthur Foundation Award in 2011, she was described by the award committee as a "consummate performer, combining technical precision with impassioned musicianship."