Alisa Weilerstein’s 2025–26: FRAGMENTS UK and European debuts
After performing FRAGMENTS 1 – Wonder at Rotterdam’s de Doelen this September, Weilerstein launches her 2025–26 residency at London’s Southbank Centre with a reprise of that program as well as FRAGMENTS 2 – Tumult, in afternoon and evening performances on the same day.
Other FRAGMENTS performances this season include FRAGMENTS 4 – Labyrinth in San Diego in October as a prelude to its debut in Carnegie Hall on November 7; FRAGMENTS 1 and 2 together in Prague’s Rudolfinum in the spring; FRAGMENTS 3 – Emergence at Germany’s stARTfestival in Leverkusen; and a FRAGMENTS program to be determined at the Dresden Festival.
It was just this past summer that Weilerstein first performed all six parts of the project in one place, at Spoleto Festival USA. In its overview of the festival, Classical Voice North America declared Weilerstein’s performances to collectively be “the most awesome classical-music event this season,” calling them “a creation you literally had to see.”
The cellist first conceived “FRAGMENTS” during the early pandemic lockdowns, when she set out to reimagine the concert experience. Comprising six programs, each an hour long, the series interweaves the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works in an immersive, multisensory production.
In her words: “As the project evolved, so did its shape and meaning. The six Fragments now reflect different stages of life and our evolving relationship with artistic expression. Fragments 1, Wonder, embodies innocence, curiosity, and the fragile excitement of discovery. Fragments 2, Tumult, is restless and rebellious, driven by upheaval and raw energy.”