KBIA's CD of the Week this week is the new release from cellist Alisa Weilerstein. The January 2014 Decca issue pairs Weilerstein with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for performances of works written by Czech Antonin Dvorak during a period the composer spent in the United States.
The January 2014 release includes Weilerstein and the Czech Philharmonic performances of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor and Silent Woods. Also included on the release are Dvorak's Song to the Moon and Goin' Home recorded with Russian pianist Anna Polonsky in New York City at the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The artist's biography notes that from an early age, the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein knew that the cello was her instrument. When Weilerstein was only two-and-a-half, her grandmother made her a cello from a cereal box. When the improvised Rice Krispies box cello didn't satisfy the toddler, her musician parents brought home the real thing: a cello for the now four-year-old. Weilerstein took to the instrument in a big way. She debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra at age 13. She was a member of the the Cleveland Institute of Music's Young Artist Program and in 2004 earned a degree at New York's Columbia University in Russian History.
Weilerstein's new Dvorak recording follows her successful 2012 release with Staatskapelle Berlin of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor. Weilerstein, now 31, has performed numerous solo and orchestral shows in the past 18 months in Europe and the U.S. including those with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra and her debut with the Atlanta Symphony. An Avery Fisher Career Grant winner in 2000, Weilerstein was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2011.
Listen for selections from Alisa Weilerstein and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra's new recording of works by Antonin Dvorak. The release is this week CD of the Week on KBIA.
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