Alisa Weilerstein

Alisa Weilerstein, who won the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award in 2006, performs the complete cycle of Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello in one evening, and that not just anywhere but in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. Of course, the American knows what she’s getting herself into. Bach »demands everything of you emotionally, cerebrally, instrumentally,« she said in an interview with the New York Times in 2017. For her, however, playing all six suites in one go is almost like Transcendental Meditation. »At the very end, I am emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted, and my brain is turned to mush – and it’s the most wonderful feeling, a cathartic feeling. I love it.«