Maya Beiser
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cellist who lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. She has an international career as a performer and recording artist. She was raised on a kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
by her French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
mother and Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
father, and graduated from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
School of Music. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine described her as a “cello goddess” and the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
called her “the queen of contemporary cello”.
Biography
Beiser has been known for her virtuosity, her unusual concert presentations and her eclectic repertoire. She has collaborated with composers Louis AndriessenLouis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
, Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...
, Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Osvaldo Golijov
Osvaldo Golijov
Osvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...
, Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Simon Shaheen
Simon Shaheen
Simon Shaheen is a Palestinian-American oud and violin virtuoso and composer....
, and David Lang
David Lang (composer)
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...
among many others. Beiser has toured as the featured cello soloist of Philip Glass’s Naqoyqatsi, having appeared at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, Lincoln Center Festival, the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and San Francisco.
Her multimedia concert “World To Come” premiered in 2004 as part of the inaugural season of Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
’s new venue, Zankel Hall. Her “World To Come” solo tour included performances at the Kennedy Center
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington DC, UCLA's Royce Hall
Royce Hall
Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison in the Italian Romanesque Revival style and completed in 1929, it is one of the four original buildings on UCLA's Westwood campus and has come to be the...
, the Kimmel Center
Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is a large performing arts venue located on Broad Street, along the stretch known as the "Avenue of the Arts", in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by Kimmel Center, Inc., an organization which also manages the Academy of Music in...
in Philadelphia, the Ravinia Festival
Ravinia Park
Ravinia Festival is the oldest outdoor music festival in the United States, with a series of outdoor concerts and performances held every summer from June to September. It has been the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1936...
in Chicago, and the Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival
Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks...
in Australia.
Beiser’s performance of Steve Reich’s "Cello Counterpoint" which was written for her, is featured on the Nonesuch CD “You Are,” which was chosen by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as one of the top albums of 2005. She is the soloist on the Sony Classical CD release of Tan Dun’s “Water Passion,” and has performed his Academy Award-winning score "Crouching Tiger" Concerto with orchestras around the globe, including the China Philharmonic
China Philharmonic Orchestra
The China Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra founded in Beijing, China on May 25, 2000, based on the previous "China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra"...
, Shanghai Symphony
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is an influential orchestra in China. The music director is Long Yu.It was founded in 1879 as Shanghai Public Band, one of the earliest orchestras in Eastern Asia. It was renamed to Shanghai Municipal Council Symphony Orchestra in 1922. Starting in 1919, an Italian...
, Montreal Symphony
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is a symphony orchestra based in Montréal, Québec, Canada, with Montréal's Place des Arts as its home.-History:...
, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra , based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the United States' only full-time professional chamber orchestra...
, Utah Symphony
Utah Symphony Orchestra
-History:The first attempt to create a symphony group in the Utah area occurred in 1892, before Utah was a state. The Salt Lake Symphony was created and presented just one concert before disbanding. In 1902 the Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra was formed, and it remained in existence until 1911...
, Eos Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...
.
Beiser was the founding cellist of the new music ensemble, the Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon...
All-Stars.
Discography
- 2010 Provenance (Innova)
- 2008 The Happening (2008 film)The Happening (2008 film)The Happening is a 2008 science fiction thriller film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan that follows a woman, her husband, the husband's best friend, and the friend's daughter as they try to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster. The plot revolves around a mysterious...
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on Varese Sarabande Records - 2007 Almost Human (KOCH International Classics)
- 2005 Steve Reich You Are (Nonesuch Records)
- 2003 World to Come (KOCH International Classics)
- 2000 Caught by Sky with Wire The Maya Beiser / Steven Schick Project (oodiscs inc)
- 2000 Kinship (KOCH International Classics)
- 1999 Oblivión with Anthony de Mare, pianist (KOCH International Classics)
- 1994 The Cello Music of Gubaidulina and Ustvolskaya (KOCH International Classics)
Filmography
- Featured soloist on M. Night ShyamalanM. Night ShyamalanManoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan,known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-born American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots that climax with a twist ending. He is also known for filming his movies in and around...
's The Happening (2008 film)The Happening (2008 film)The Happening is a 2008 science fiction thriller film written, co-produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan that follows a woman, her husband, the husband's best friend, and the friend's daughter as they try to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster. The plot revolves around a mysterious... - Featured soloist on Denzel WashingtonDenzel WashingtonDenzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter, director, and film producer. He first rose to prominence when he joined the cast of the medical drama, St. Elsewhere, playing Dr...
's The Great DebatersThe Great DebatersThe Great Debaters is a 2007 American biopic period drama film directed by and starring two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey and her production company, Harpo Productions... - Featured soloist on Edward ZwickEdward ZwickEdward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...
's Blood DiamondBlood Diamond (film)Blood Diamond is a 2006 political thriller film co-produced and directed by Edward Zwick and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou...