Press Reviews

(Selected press quotes below. For full reviews and feature articles, please visit artist's Digital Presskit.)

What the Critics Say...

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

"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

About Maya Beiser's CD Kinship (Koch International 2000)

Maya Beiser's Kinship - Top Ten Classical Recordings of 2000 - Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times Music Critic

"Not only insanely talented, but also curiously innovative, Maya Beiser is pushing the limits of what cello playing can be." - Kenneth Goldsmith, New York Press

"Label Beiser's music if you dare. The common denominator is her quest for the abundant beauty, pathos, humor, eeriness and pure feeling her instrument is capable of." - Emily King, Barnes and Noble.com

"The most notable new disc in the Kronos (globe-trotting) tradition..." - Bradley Bamberger, Billboard

"...an unmistakably urban blend of lyricism and aggressiveness..." - Justin Davidson, Newsday

"Though the spiritual and ethnic aspects of Kinship will appeal to an audience outside the classical core...it's "crossover" not by design, or by compromise, but simply because this music's time has come." - Steve Holtje, CD Now

"This is as vital, contemporary, stimulating and far reaching as any current CD - in any genre. If you like classical, you'll find this rewarding. If you like jazz, you'll find it inspired and highly individual. And if you like "world"...then you'll find all the exoticism and unique sounds/ethnic strains you want." - Customer Review, Amazon.com