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5 tips from 5 string players for conquering performance nerves / theStrad
Posted At : May 21, 2019 12:00 AM
Artists share their wisdom on battling the fear monster, as featured over the last five years of The Strad. Here are 5 tips
1. Concentrate on intention - A great artist by the name of Leon Fleisher once shared a secret with me when I was 18. My bow was shaking while I was playing in a masterclass for him and he said something that in the moment did not seem very sympathetic: that if I had enough ideas in my mind of what I needed to communicate, then I wouldn't have room to be nervous. I have lived with that piece of advice for forty years. Kim Kashkashian, November 2018
2. Perform for friends - When getting ready to play in public I find it's so helpful to play for my friends and for people who know me really well, because it's actually more difficult to play for them than it is to play for an audience full of strangers. Alisa Weilerstein, December 2016
3. Think positive - To turn around the negativity, I visualise positive scenarios. Sometimes visualising a passage going correctly before it happens can really help – just like a basketball player, as he takes the shot, imagining the ball going through the net. There have been psychological studies, which have found that going through the physical process of making yourself smile actually tricks your body into feeling happiness. It seems like the cart before the horse, but I have read that it works. So by the same token, if you can project an image of confidence on stage, you will start feeling more confident within yourself. Joshua Bell, November 2015
4. Don't pretend - The more sincere we are in our performance, the more we convince our audience, and it's conviction that creates stage presence. Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, March 2015
5. Breathe deeply on stage - I absolutely love being on stage. Having said that, I don't know any colleague (myself included) who has not had some issue with nerves at some point in their lives. The most important thing is to make sure that stage fright never overcomes you. And you have to know how and when to react if something happens during a performance which you are not expecting.
One thing I notice listening to certain students is that they stop breathing freely when they get nervous. I do believe this can make things worse. The more nervous you become, the deeper you should try and breathe, especially while playing. It sends different signals to your brain and your muscles and can help you enormously if the going gets tough.
Although stage fright – in my opinion – is mostly psychological, I also believe that the routine on a concert day is worth looking at closely: when you sleep, when you eat, when you practise. All of it can make a difference. - Daniel Hope, April 2014
SEE theStrad PAGE
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Aspen Public Radio - music festival showcase features Alisa Weilerstein
Posted At : August 15, 2017 12:00 AM
Lots of things happening this last week at the Aspen Music Festival! And the musicians are sometimes getting a little giddy. Bassist Edgar Meyer says when he's walking around with his instrument in its case, he sometimes sees people looking at him in a way that he knows they're about to say something stupid! And bass trombonist John Rojak has been so busy preparing for Saturday's concert with a bass trombone concerto, he says his lips are so strong they could pull a tractor! World-class cellist Alisa Weilerstein and rising opera star Ian Koziara also talk about concerts and opera performances. Enjoy Aspen Public Radio's penultimate Festival Showcase for the 2017 summer music festival season with an exciting array of great conversations with great performers.
LISTEN TO THE Aspen Public Radio FEATURE
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Alisa Weilerstein Interview with All Classical Portland
Posted At : January 7, 2016 12:00 AM
Frederic Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninov were composers, sure. However, both stand as among the greatest of pianists of their respective eras (early 19th century / early-to-mid 20th century). While much of each composers' repertoire is for solo piano, as well as a few concertos, each wrote wonderful music for the cello. Both composers put the cello on an equal footing with the piano, and both wrote large-and-small scale compositions for cello: a four-movement sonata, and some melodious shorter works.
American pianist Alisa Weilerstein, in my recorded conversation, shares the story of the cello's history with the piano, and with her longstanding professional partnership with pianist Inon Barnatan (Oregon Symphony fans will remember Barnatan's 2013 performance). This is their debut recording, but the sense of communication between the two musicians is very apparent throughout, and their years-long collaboration has yielded results that invite repeated hearings. We're currently playing all of the selections in our regular programming on All Classical Portland; here you'll get the background on the music and these two artists.
LISTEN TO THE All Classical Portland SEGMENT
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A Conversation with Alisa Weilerstein / NPR: Diane Rehm
Posted At : December 14, 2015 12:00 AM
New York Magazine called Alisa Weilerstein "Yo-Yo Ma's heiress apparent as sovereign of the American cello." Gifted from a young age, her music career skyrocketed despite a childhood diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Awarding her a "genius" grant when she was 29, the MacArthur Foundation cited Weilerstein's "emotionally resonant performances" and ability to combine "technical precision with impassioned musicianship." Now at 33 she is an internationally-lauded performer and champion of contemporary music. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein on her new album, fighting type 1 diabetes, and the perks and perils of being young, American and female in the classical music world.
She talks with NPR's Diane Rehm.
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Alisa Weilerstein on MPR - Learning to Listen
Posted At : December 15, 2014 12:00 AM
St. Paul, Minn. - On today's Learning to Listen, Alisa Weilerstein talks about the evolution of the cello as a solo instrument, and how Antonin Dvořák, Pablo Casals, and Zoltán Kodály changed how the world perceived the cello. Weilerstein's first two commercial recordings featured her as soloist with orchestras, playing concerti by Elgar, Dvořák and Carter.
For her new recording, she chose to play music for solo cello, including music by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály. Kodály was a composer and an "ethnomusicologist" who was passionate about studying and archiving folk music of his native Hungary.
In 1915, he wrote his Sonata for Solo Cello. In it, he requires unusual techniques from the soloist, techniques he witnessed while watching villagers play. Those techniques were new to the world, and Kodály's piece ended up influencing generations of composers writing for cello in the 20th century .
Hear Weilerstein talk about these techniques, and their influence, on this week's Learning to Listen on Classical MPR.
LISTEN TO THE FULL SEGMENT
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Alisa Weilerstein interview with KDFC: San Francisco
Posted At : December 11, 2014 12:00 AM
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is comfortable in front of an orchestra and playing chamber music, but her new album from Decca is just her alone. Fittingly, it's called Solo - and she decided to highlight works that have all been written for unaccompanied cello in the past hundred years, by Zoltán Kodály, Gaspar Cassadó, Osvaldo Golijov, and Bright Sheng.
For many casual classical music listeners, solo cello repertoire might not be very familiar. But Weilerstein says there's much to explore. "The Bach suites are of course incredibly familiar to the general audience, and there was this vacuum - there's no really good solo cello music that was written in the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth century, we have this embarassment of riches." The first work on the disc, the earliest, from 1915, is Kodály's Sonata, opus 8, "which was this really groundbreaking piece, that was really the first piece of its kind for the solo cello. Thirty-five minutess, stretching the technique to the highest it had ever really been stretched, and just really an emotionally satisfying, wonderful celebration." It uses the technique called scordatura, with two strings intentionally tuned differently than is standard for the instrument. "The lower two strings are tuned down a half step, each of them are," she says. "Which means that not only can you play chords which are simply not possible to play with a normal tuning, but it creates a kind of different sonority. The cello vibrates differently when the strings are tuned down to that pitch." It also means the range is extended.
All the works on the disc owe a debt to folk traditions. Kodály, who along with Bartok studied the melodies of gypsies they encountered in the Hungarian woods, Gaspar Cassadó (who was a cellist himself) borrowed from Catalan and Spanish folk dances in his Suite for Cello. Osvaldo Golijov, whose parents were Eastern European Jews, was born in Argentina. "And the Omaramor is a kind of long tango," Weilerstein explains. " In fact the cello is supposed to be walking through the streets of Buenos Aires. Sometimes these are rough, sometimes these are very melancholic, very nostalgic memories." Finally, there's Bright Sheng's Seven Tunes Heard in China. "Little vignettes, based on some ancient Chinese folk songs... also inspired by ancient Chinese instruments. And you also hear some more modern Chinese and Tibetan songs." For that work, the cello channels such traditional instruments as the erhu and pipa.
LISTEN TO THE KDFC: San Francisco - State Of the Arts Interview INTERVIEW
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Alisa Weilerstein plays Elgar Concerto with Cleveland Orchestra / Cleveland.com review
Posted At : November 7, 2014 12:00 AM
Cleveland-bred cellist Alisa Weilerstein, now a superstar on international platforms, brought a very youthful interpretation of Elgar's last great work, his Cello Concerto in E Minor, to Severance Hall Thursday night. It was a mercurial performance, at times presenting Elgar's thoughts with forcefulness, elsewhere allowing his anguished phrases to dissolve in the faintest of pianissimi, while maintaining notable control throughout.
Weilerstein was impetuous in the fleet-footed Scherzo, setting a pace faster than usually encountered. Some of Elgar's exquisite filigree was lost in the process; just the tiniest bit of restraint here would have allowed the quicksilver music a little more opportunity to assert itself. READ THE FULL Cleveland.com REVIEW.
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Alisa Weilerstein performs with The Cleveland Orchestra / Clevelandclassical.com
Posted At : November 4, 2014 12:00 AM
In a recent interview with clevelandclassical.com, Alisa Weilerstein discussed her upcoming performance with The Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Giancarlo Guerrero of Elgar's Cello Concerto on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 at 7:30p in Severance Hall. The program, which also includes Arvo Pärt's Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten and John Adams's Harmonielehre, will be repeated on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Ms. Weilerstein will lead a special public masterclass with students from Northeast Ohio colleges on Friday at 4p in Reinberger Chamber Hall. Admission is free but a ticket is required. At age 13, the cellist made her debut with The Cleveland Orchestra and is excited to return to her hometown.
READ THE FULL clevelandclassical.com FEATURE HERE
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Alisa Weilerstein - Dvorak / New Classical Tracks feature
Posted At : September 17, 2014 12:00 AM
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE JULIE AMACHER'S INTERVIEW w/ Alisa Weilerstein
"I know this has been said before, but I really do believe that it's the most human of all instruments," says cellist Alisa Weilerstein. "It encompasses the entire spectrum of what the human voice can do from the deepest bass to the highest coloratura soprano. And it's capable of expressing, kind of empathizing, with some of the deepest and unexpressed emotions that people have. So that's one reason I felt that I could always speak through the cello, sometimes much better than I could speak verbally."
Weilerstein fell in love with the cello almost 30 years ago. Her father was first violin in the Cleveland Quartet, her mother a noted pianist. They were away performing and Alisa was spending the weekend with her grandmother. "I had chicken pox and she gave me a present, which was a string quartet of instruments. The cello was made out of a cereal box - Rice Krispies, actually - and the endpin was made from an old green toothbrush and the bow was a chopstick. I totally shunned the other instruments - I don't know why at the time, it was just a strong instinct, I wanted the cello."
Two years later, Alisa begged to take real cello lessons, and her star has been rising ever since. In 2000, she earned an Avery Fischer Career Grant, and in 2011 she won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Now, at age 31, Alisa has realized her childhood dream. "By the time I had a real cello in my hand, I knew what the Dvořák Concerto sounded like and I knew I wanted to play it," she says. "It was my ultimate dream to play it around the world to different audiences - it was my greatest ambition."
Alisa has been playing the Dvořák cello concerto around the world, and she recently recorded it with Jiří Bělohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic. "They play so beautifully, with such a warmth and depth and this music just flows right out of them in such a beautiful and natural way," she says. "We did record in studio but I was actually facing them the whole time so I could really engage everyone. Their approach also was so lyrical, so vocal. Oftentimes the tendency of all of us cellists when we're playing the Dvořák is to go for a more muscular attitude, I think. And hearing them play these lush melodies in such a lyrical, gorgeous way- it definitely influenced me."
Taking a more lyrical approach makes perfect sense since the composer includes fragments of a beautiful song within the concerto. Dvořák was secretly in love with his wife's sister, Alisa explains, and this song titled, "Leave Me Alone," was her favorite: "The next track on the album is the actual song itself, an arrangement of the song because I really wanted to tie this together. You hear this, of course, in the second movement and then in the last movement. It's so interesting because Dvořák had a different ending in mind when he was conceiving it at first. And then when he heard that his sister-in-law was dying, he completely changed the ending and had the cello really end … having these fragments of the song while it's dying down. And the concerto, with that in mind, really becomes kind of a tone poem - it's a hero's life. You hear the hero enter, you hear him fight battles, you hear him sing love songs and you hear the hero's death, ultimately. It ends on a flat line, the cello ends on a sigh. And then when the orchestra takes over, it's as if the soul is leaving the body. And the fact that the song inspired this incredible ending is something so beautiful."
What do you love about this concerto? I asked Alisa. "Oh, what do I not love is more the question! It is a masterpiece in every sense," she says. "It runs the gamut of emotions. It makes complete use of the cello's capabilities. It's so richly orchestrated and there are so many layers to find - every time I return to it, I find something new. And ultimately, it's just an incredibly moving piece and just so natural and really touching. I could sing its praises for … how long do you have?"
For this Dvořák recording Alisa chose pieces in which she really believed. Many in fact, stem from her childhood, like Silent Woods, the Rondo, and the gorgeous arrangement of "Going Home", from Dvořák's Symphony No. 9. "That arrangement really made me very happy because I think I listened to the 'New World' Symphony daily when I was a small child," Weilerstein says. "I always wanted to play the English horn so I could play that solo. And finally I got my wish - I got to play that melody."
On her latest recording of cello works by Dvořák, Alisa Weilerstein invites you to share in her childhood dream.
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Alisa Weilerstein plays Dvorak Cello Concerto with Czech Philharmonic / The Guardian review
Posted At : August 25, 2014 12:00 AM
Nobody does Proms encores like the Czech Phil. The Czech repertoire is shot through with dances whichever way you cut it, and Jiří Bělohlávek's orchestra rounded off this programme with a generous three of them: a Dvořák Slavonic Dance, a scurrying Skocna by Smetana, and Nedbal's Valse Triste, all delivered with effortless poise and style.
In fact the whole of the second half had, in its way, been one long dance. "The apotheosis of the dance" is how Wagner famously described Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and that is how the work sounded here under Bělohlávek's neat direction. The phrasing was fluid, the playing elegant; but nothing mattered so much as the rhythm, whether it came courtesy of the lower strings pushing their way onwards over the higher violins as the slow movement built up its juggernaut momentum, or the horns unleashing brief but jubilant fanfares in the final pages.
If the orchestra hit its real stride only in the second half, there was some refined playing in the first half too. The overture to Janáček's bleak, prison-set opera From the House of the Dead brought intensity, especially from the two solo violins at the start, and apt sound effects from a percussion player shaking his chains, but the piece itself seemed to tick the Czech box rather than fit with the rest of the programme.
It was a world away from the romantic breadth of Dvořák's Cello Concerto, especially with the solo part played with such focus and sweep as it was here, by Alisa Weilerstein. They all recently recorded the work together, and it showed – perhaps not so much at the beginning, when things took a little while to settle, but very much so in the spacious slow movement, beautifully drawn out by Weilerstein and with the orchestra in complete sympathy. Weilerstein's encore, a solo Bach Sarabande, was from the same mould – smooth, deliberate and perfectly controlled.-Erica Jeal
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Alisa Weilerstein plays Elgar Cello Concerto with Orchestra of St. Luke's led by Pablo Heras-Casado / WQXR Live Broadcast
Posted At : August 3, 2014 12:00 AM
Tune in to WQXR for a live broadcast of the Caramoor Festival's season finale, featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke's led by conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein caps a week-long residency at the festival as the soloist in Elgar's Cello Concerto.
Weilerstein's performance is bookended by two 19th-century favorites: the rousing Prelude to Act III of Wagner's Lohengrin, and Dvořák's ultra-melodic Symphony No. 8. Elliott Forrest hosts the broadcast. Listen to the performance streaming on New York: WQXR.
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Alisa Weilerstein - Dvorak / BBC Music Magazine review
Posted At : July 17, 2014 12:00 AM
A mixture of muscular virtuosity and radiant reflection marks the middle part of the first movement. Alisa Weilerstein's performance of the slow movment reveals a profound understanding of the relationship between the solo parts and the multi-faceted delicacy of Dvořák's orchestration, while that of the finale confirms that this is one of the great ensemble performances of this concerto available. Pick up the August issue of BBC Music Magazine to read the full review.
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Alisa Weilerstein interview on WNYC: The Leonard Lopate Show
Posted At : June 2, 2014 12:00 AM
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein is widely recognized as one of the great classical musicians of her generation, and in 2011 she received a MacArthur "genius" grant. She discusses performing on June 6th at the New York Philharmonic's Biennial, the orchestra's contemporary music festival, where she will give the NY premiere of Mattias Pintscher's Reflections on Narcissus. Listen to Alisa's interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC: New York.
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Alisa Weilerstein - Dvorak / The Sunday Times review
Posted At : May 18, 2014 12:00 AM
Following her remarkable Decca debut coupling of the Elgar and Elliott Carter concertos with Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle Berlin, we now get this glorious account of the Dvorak concerto from Alisa Weilerstein. The brilliant young American has no need for the naff "come hither" pose in front of Dvorak's Bohemian forestry on the booklet cover: her musicianship amply evokes the composer's nostalgic love of the natural world. The concerto was written during his American sojourn, but it lives and breathes the air of the Czech countryside and its music. Pick up this week's copy of The Sunday Times to read the full review.
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Alisa Weilerstein talks Dvorak and future plans / Presto Classical interview
Posted At : May 6, 2014 12:00 AM
It's been a whirlwind year for Alisa Weilerstein, with two BBC Music Magazine Awards for her recording of the Elgar and Carter concertos with Daniel Barenboim, a new disc of Dvorak, and a plethora of major international engagements. We caught up with Alisa over the phone last week during the Tel Aviv leg of her current tour, which runs until the end of July and sees her performing a wide variety of solo repertoire and concertos across the Middle East, US and Australasia. Here's what she had to say about Dvorak and her future plans...READ THE FULL Presto Classical INTERVIEW.
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Alisa Weilerstein - Dvorak / WRTI: Classical New Releases
Posted At : April 9, 2014 12:00 AM
Alisa Weilerstein: Dvorak - The raves keep coming in for this new recording of the great Czech's American-inflected cello concerto pairing young American cellist Alisa Weilerstein with the Czech Philharmonic. Soulful, passionate, full-blooded, and captivating are just a few of the adjectives other reviewers have used to describe her performance, and I can't disagree. Weilerstein's gorgeous, singing tone also shines through in several Dvorak encores for cello and piano, with pianist Anna Polonsky.
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Alisa Weilerstein wins BBC Music Magazine's 'Recording of the Year'
Posted At : April 8, 2014 12:00 AM
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein has won the BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Year Award with her debut concerto disc, the Elgar and Carter Cello Concertos, with the Berlin Staatskappelle and Daniel Barenboim, released on the Decca label.
Voted for by the public and BBC Music Magazine's expert jury of critics, Weilerstein's disc represents the very best of more than 1,500 reviewed by BBC Music Magazine throughout 2013.
The 2014 BBC Music Magazine Awards jury commented: 'Weilerstein avoids nostalgia and produces an account full of passion, grief and nobility of feeling…it's been years since a new recording of Elgar's great concerto made this kind of visceral impact. Significantly, it is the first time that Barenboim has chosen to conduct a recording of Elgar's famous Cello Concerto since his legendary performances with Jacqueline du Pré.'
SEE THE FULL LIST OF BBC Music Magazine award winners
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Everyone's Talking About: Alisa Weilerstein / Sinfini Music
Posted At : April 7, 2014 12:00 AM
She's the young American cellist who won a coveted McArthur 'genius grant', has persuaded Daniel Barenboim to return to the Elgar Cello Concerto, and this month releases her second solo recording featuring the Dvořák Cello Concerto: Alisa Weilerstein has graduated from star-in-the-making to outright dazzler.
READ THE FULL Sinfini Music ARTICLE
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WUOL Louisville interviews Alisa Weilerstein
Posted At : March 26, 2014 12:00 AM
Alisa Weilerstein's latest album captures one of Antonin Dvorák's best-loved works, his Cello Concerto, and two handfuls of gorgeous songs and arrangements. The whole album was recorded in the same concert hall that Dvorák conducted his own music. Jiří Bělohlávek conducts the Czech Philharmonic for the concerto, and Anna Polonsky plays piano for the rest of the album. Ms. Weilerstein is also a spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Listen to the segment with Alisa Weilerstein
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Alisa Weilerstein discusses new Dvorak CD this Sunday with WDAV Radio
Posted At : February 28, 2014 12:00 AM
Alisa Weilerstein's new recording for Decca/Universal Music Classics features the music of Antonín Dvořák, and explores works created during the time Dvořák spent in the United States. The disc features his Cello Concerto in B minor and Silent Woods, both recorded with Jiří Bělohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic. Also included on the album are arrangements of "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka, and the song Goin' Home, written by one of Dvořák's pupils and based on the melody from the Largo movement of his "New World" Symphony. "Song to the Moon" and Goin' Home were recorded in New York City at the American Academy of Arts and Letters with Russian pianist Anna Polonsky. Ms. Weilerstein joins WDAV-Davidson NC: 'Biscuits and Bach' host Rachel Stewart this Sunday March 2, to talk about the recording.
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Alisa Weilerstein's new Dvorak release - is the KDFC 'CD of the Week'
Posted At : February 20, 2014 12:00 AM
Discover New Music with KDFC's CDs of the Week! This week's feature is from American cellist Alisa Weilerstein who joins forces with the Czech Philharmonic and conductor Jiri Belohclavek in a performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto. Recorded in Prague's Rudolfinum, where Dvorák himself conducted the Czech Philharmonic's inaugural concert in 1896, works on the album include the Rondo in G minor, Songs My Mother Taught Me, and an arrangement of the Largo from the New World Symphony for cello and piano. Tune in throughout the week for good airplay on the title as 'CD of the Week.'
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Alisa Weilerstein - Dvorak CD is WCLV: Cleveland 'Choice for February'
Posted At : February 1, 2014 12:00 AM
Each month, WCLV's Program Director Bill O'Connell selects a series of special 'Choice CDs' to be featured on the air throughout the month. For February, Bill has selected Cellist: Alisa Weilerstein's new Dvorák CD with the Czech Philharmonic led by Jirí Belohlávek. Here are his comments on this standout CD.
WCLV listeners know that Alisa Weilerstein made her debut at age 13 with the Cleveland Orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, and that her parents are Donald Weilerstein - the founding first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet - and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein. This new disc contains Dvorak's epic concerto and includes the haunting melody ‘Going Home,' his song ‘Lasst mich allein,' the beautiful ‘Silent Woods,' the Rondo in G minor, ‘Songs My Mother Taught Me' and the Slavonic Dance No.8.
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Alisa Weilerstein interview with KUAF - Fayettville airs TODAY!!!
Posted At : January 31, 2014 12:00 AM
American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has dreamed of playing Dvorak's cello concerto at concert halls the world over since age four. Her new recording for Decca documents this passion, with Weilerstein performing the lyrical work, accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Jiri Belohlavek. KUAF - Fayettville AR Katy Henriksen talks to Weilerstein about her early love for Dvorak, the importance of biographical details to understanding pieces and about how the concerto is a tone poem, with the cello as the hero.
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Alisa Weilerstein stops by New York's WQXR Radio for a 'Cafe Concert'
Posted At : January 27, 2014 12:00 AM
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein, a 2011 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" grant and busy touring artist, recently stopped by the WQXR Café in New York to interview and perform soulful renditions of solo works by Osvaldo Golijov and J.S. Bach. She described the Gigue from Bach's Cello Suite No. 3 as "one of the most beloved pieces for cello." She also talked about her new Dvorak Check out the attached video.
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Alisa Weilerstein's Dvorak - is this week's WQXR: New York / Album Of the Week
Posted At : January 26, 2014 12:00 AM
New York cellist Alisa Weilerstein traveled to the Czech Republic to record the centerpiece of her new all-Dvorák album. She teams up with the Czech Philharmonic and conductor irí Belohlávek in this lush favorite of the cello literature, delivering a supple and highly expressive performance. The rest of the program features short works including cello-piano arrangements of songs ("Leave me Alone," "Goin' Home") and the Slavanic Dance No. 8 in G minor, "Furiant." And no, that forest on the album's cover is not Central Park but the "Silent Woods" of the final track (From the Bohemian Forest) on Dvorák's estate. Alisa Weilerstein's Dvorak - is this week's WQXR: New York / Album Of the Week.
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Alisa Weilerstein interviews with Classical Radio TODAY!! for new Dvorak recording on Decca/Universal
Posted At : January 23, 2014 12:00 AM
American cellist Alisa Weilerstein's new recording for Decca/Universal Music Classics will feature the music of Antonín Dvořák, and will be released in North America on January 28, 2014. The album explores works created during the time Dvořák spent in the United States, and features his Cello Concerto in B minor and Silent Woods, both recorded with Jiří Bělohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic. Also included on the album are arrangements of "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka, and the song Goin' Home, written by one of Dvořák's pupils and based on the melody from the Largo movement of his "New World" Symphony. "Song to the Moon" and Goin' Home were recorded in New York City at the American Academy of Arts and Letters with Russian pianist Anna Polonsky. In conjunction with this release, TODAY!!! Ms Weilerstein will be interviewed by Classical Radio. Upcoming airdates will be announced.
