About Maya Beiser's Provenance

“Spain’s Golden Age, an era of peaceable coexistence and cooperation among Jews, Muslims and Christians during the 9th through 15th centuries, has inspired projects by numerous prominent artists. Some, like the great Catalan viol player Jordi Savall (who will perform at Lincoln Center in May), have tried to recreate sounds of the period. “Provenance,” a program the cellist Maya Beiser presented at Le Poisson Rouge on Wednesday night, proposes a modernday analogue with evocative modern works inspired by historical sources…”
- New York Times

“American cellist Maya Beiser, a founding member of Bang On A Can, has devoted her considerable gifts — a warm, gorgeous tone; a flawless technique; and above all, an intense soulfulness — to the contemporary repertory, and she is responsible for the creation of significant new works for her instrument…All of these pieces showcase the committed expressivity and unabashed emotionalism of Beiser’s playing. The works create an aura of exoticism (in the use of modes and folk instruments associated with the Near and Middle East), have a solo line that sounds freely improvisatory, and a tone that is most often passionately melancholy… The CD should be of interest to fans of virtuoso cello playing, new music, and the fusion of Western classical and world music traditions.”
- allmusic

“No less important than the composers’ sources and inspirations are Beiser’s own interpretations. Although the cello is not a traditional Middle Eastern instrument, she has managed to make it a perfect vehicle for music that is alternately melancholy and ecstatic, haunting and impassioned.”
- Forward.com

“Provenance should be listened in one sitting, from the soft intro to the long, languid, fade on the Plant/Page tune (with melodic phrases coming at the listener from all angles. Is this the sound of peace, of nations reaching across borders to interact on human levels? Maya Beiser certainly believes so – we are better for her optimism and conviction.”
- Step Tempest

“The term ‘rock star’ isn’t really applicable to the world of the cello, but if it was then Maya Beiser would be one… Beiser’s skill with the cello is undeniable – she seems to be able to wrench a wide range of emotions from her instrument, to the point that it sounds like a de facto vocalist (her take on the aforementioned Kashmir is very reminiscent of Robert Plant’s vocal melody). This release should appeal equally to fans of contemporary classical, world music, or really anyone who just enjoys listening to great music performed with equal parts skill and devotion.”
- Gray Flannel Suit

“Using medieval Spain as a jumping off point, Beiser has commissioned a collection of works that celebrate Christian, Jewish, and Muslim musical traditions. The participants frequently interweave stylistic and ethnic boundaries. The results are frequently engaging musical hybrids… A hopeful and tantalizing glimpse at what music-making and, indeed, cultural coexistence, may increasingly look like in the future.”
- Sequenza 21

“I had the great pleasure of first encountering Maya Beiser’s artistry in a live setting…where she gave a searing performance of Michael Gordon’s solo cello piece Industry, and her subsequent contributions to the Bang On A Can All-Stars releases proved to be just as satisfying. As rewarding, however, is this latest collection of solo and ensemble pieces (Beiser accompanied by oud player Bassam Saba, drummer Jerry Marotta, and percussionists Shane Shanahan and Jamey Haddad) by contemporary composers from Armenia, Kurdish Iran, Israel, the US, and the UK.

One of the recording’s major strengths is that all five of the musical works allow the emotive side of Beiser’s playing to come fully to the fore. Her tone is splendidly showcased throughout Kayhan Kalhor’s I Was There where her cello is given ample space to cry and moan poignantly.”
- Textura

“Maya Beiser is the superstar of the new-classical, avant-garde cello. On her latest recording, Provenance, she comes across as a one-woman Kronos Quartet on a peace mission to the Middle East, intertwining new music from Armenia, Kurdistan, Israel, and the United States… Beiser gives voice to the cultural ties among the feuding peoples of the Middle East, inspired by the historic model of medieval Spain, when Muslims, Christians, and Jews together achieved the heights of what we now call Western civilization. Beiser’s wailing cello speaks louder, however, than any history book or political orator.”
- Berkshire Living

About Maya Beiser's Live Performances of Almost Human

"The stately cello becomes a delicate singer in the hands of Maya Beiser, whose repertoire of contemporary works is inspired by such ancient vocal traditions as Renaissance madrigals, Moroccan chants and Jewish cantorial songs."
- Lisa Rossi, Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2006

"Forget the traditional offerings of Bach and Brahms. Maya Beiser, the hot young cello diva of the avante-garde, puts together hip global programs of purely 21st Century music, pushing her instrument to its limits. She embraces amplification, revels in multimedia and likes to punch up the bland stage of the recital hall with visual drama. Her musical appetite is voracious, and top composers from Steve Reich to Osvaldo Golijov have lined up to write for her. In short, she's out to shake the classical world by its neck, to which we can only respond with loud and heartfelt cheers."
- Stephen Brookes, The Washington Post, October 23, 2006

"The intense cellist Maya Beiser gave a cappuccino concert at Zankel Hall Thursday: a rich, powerful concentrate topped with a foam of fine intentions. Beiser is not the sort of musician who zigzags around the planet playing catalog concertos for polite and sleepy audiences. She throws down a gauntlet with every program and in this one, titled 'Almost Human," she dared listeners to deny that a cello possesses the power of speech. Beiser spurred the curvaceous wooden box she plays into bouts of lyric eloquence, or at least nearly intelligible mutterings over the expressive hum of electronic sounds."
- Justin Davidson, Newsday, March 11, 2006

"Beiser combines the best of two worlds. She is a classically trained cellist with the technical and interperative resources to draw whatever kind of music she wishes from her instrument. She also has a keen appreciation of stagecraft. Beiser has clearly decided that even the most tradition-bound audiences might respond to some onstage commentary in her low, sexy voice. They probably would be intrigued by her long, flowing locks and an all-white concert uniform of form-fitting pants and sleeveless top. On Tuesday night, her little bit of nightclub chanteuse, touch of downtown hipster and bounty of straight-up musical taste and musicianship added up to a concert that lingers in the memory."
- Wynne Delacoma, Chicago Sun-Times, August 4, 2005

About Maya Beiser's Live Performances of World to Come

A contemporary tour de force [five stars]
“Maya Beiser’s new recording is a sensational exploration into the world of multi-track recording. “Mariel” is a spiritual work, centered around what sounds like a South American folk song. “World to Come,” by far the largest work on this disc, with vocals and multiple tracks of cellos, is inspirational and hopeful.”
-Amazon.com

“World To Come” finds cellist Maya Beiser at the height of her risk-taking and boundary-crossing ambition. She defies not only cultural differences but also conventional oppositions of artist and medium, music and visual art, live performance and recorded material.”
-Elusive Disc.com

“Beiser’s Ability to imbue tremendous emotion into any chosen composition, underscores the album’s central premise: cultural empathy in a post-9/11 landscape.”
-Pause Record CD reviews

"If New York concertgoers are eager to know how Zankel Hall intends to distinguish itself from Carnegie Hall's two other auditoriums, the solo cello recital by Maya Beiser on Thursday night provided a mesmerizing answer. Ms. Beiser, a champion of contemporary music with an ardent following, is drawn to composers whose works, often written for her, use video imagery, lighting effects and recorded elements. Zankel Hall provided an ideal environment for Ms. Beiser's multimedia program...Ms. Beiser was vigorously cheered by the packed house."
- Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, November 1, 2003

"Beiser's playing, both live and canned, throbbed with vitality and sounded as comfortable in the slithering harmonics of Arvo Part's "Fratres" as in the romantic melodies and restless, dead-ending figures rippling through Daivd Lang's compelling "World to Come."
- Joe Banno, The Washington Post, November 4, 2003

"...amazingly rich, evocative, and remarkably beautiful."
- R.M. Campbell, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 16, 2004

"Maya, it seems to me, is doing for the cello what the Kronos Quartet did for the string quartet. She is a soloist-quality cellist, and instead of playing Kodaly and Bach, she's commissioning new works, using electronics, presenting a show with a lot of different media. She's saying, 'This is a different way to go.'"
- Steve Reich (from 10/26/03 article in The New York Times)

"Miss Beiser must be congratulated for choosing a program that represents recent tendencies so tellingly, and for performing all the music on the highest level."
- Leo Kraft, New Music Connoisseur, October 30, 2003

"World To Come hits a new high point in a career marked by experimentation and adventure."
- Steve Smith, Time Out New York, Oct 30-Nov 6, 2003

About Maya Besier's latest CD World to Come (Koch International; October 2004)

"The latest release from Maya Beiser, the virtuosic queen of the post-minimalist cello, carves out new turf in solo performance."
- Robert Hurwitt, Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 2003

"As a performer and promoter of new music, Maya Beiser is peerless-a terrific example of how to package the work of "difficult" composers in a kind of modern hipness without compromising the music or the performance. Here, Beiser's taste and musicality are flawless."
- CD Review, Sequenza 21, November 11,2003

About Maya Beiser's previous live performances

"Brightly voiced and musically attentive everywhere. The young Israeli cellist had a firm and even hand regardless of subject: bleak modernism, sultry ethnicity, or Romantic revival."
- The New York Times

"Flawless ... definitive ... an outstanding performance. From her most nimble notes to her wild and fascinating cadenzas, Beiser simply made the piece her own."
- Newsday, New York

"...she went at the incredibly challenging cello solo like a rock guitarist, playing its slides, plucked notes, double stops and other difficulties with style and abandon."
- The Gazette, Saratoga, NY

"Maya Beiser is a cellist with a powerful and unique personality and a dominant dramatic talent. Superb playing, simply a Jewel."
- Al Hamishmar, Tel Aviv

"Ardently songful. Beiser's tone was plangent, her intonation secure and her vibrato admirably taut."
- American Record Guide

"Powerful expression and a profound, resonant, beautiful sound. A demonstration of brilliant virtuosity."
- Haarets, Jerusalem

"Ms. Beiser's playing was impressive in its exquisite, gorgeous sound. A phenomenal cellist, endowed with a truly unique temperament."
- St. Petersburg Evening News

"Cellist Maya Beiser proved an adept interpreter of modern music. All the works on her 92nd Street Y Program were conceived in this century and the terser and knottier the language, the more she seemed to find her element. The more lyrical works gave Beiser the chance to showcase her generous, warm and woody tone especially Shostakovich's D Minor Sonata, a piece of rare depth and poignant introspection."
- The New York Post

"An engaging player who invariably gets the essentials of the music with flair. A true performer."
- The Strad, London