Fragments 3: Alisa Weilerstein at Zankel Hall May 20th, 2025 Published in Sequenza 21 By Christian Carey NEW YORK – Alisa Weilerstein is a supremely gifted cellist, and it is hard to imagine being anything less than riveted by her playing. At Zankel Hall last Tuesday, she made decisions for her Fragments project that seemed to be needlessly distracting. There are six Fragments programs all told, each based on one of the Bach Suites, joined by new pieces commissioned for the project. Fragments 3 featured the third cello suite alongside pieces by Joseph Hallman, Thomas Larcher, Jeffrey Mumford,
Read moreSimone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn Perform Glass at Merkin Hall Kaufman Music Center Piano Dialogues Simone Dinnerstein with Baroklyn May 12, 2025 Published on Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Last Monday, the pianist Simone Dinnerstein brought her Baroklyn project to Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall to perform an all Philip Glass program. Baroklyn is a string ensemble, augmented at the concert by harp and celesta, assembled by Dinnerstein from musician friends with an eye towards a mostly, but not exclusively, female group. The concert opener was The Hours Suite, excerpted from the film score and arranged by Michael
Read more(Photo credit: Ismael Lorenzo) In the presence of Thomas Demenga, there’s no such thing as a solo concert, for one considers not only the unrepeatable coincidence of performer and instrument but also the composers whose creations bond them. Such fullness of vision was already evident in 1987, when the Swiss cellist began pairing J. S. Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites with contemporary counterparts in a flight of albums for ECM New Series. The first of these viewed the Suite No. 4 through a lens crafted of Heinz Holliger’s chamber pieces, thus setting precedent for a compelling traversal of deciduous and coniferous
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