Maya Beiser brings to Ithaca a 'World to Come'

The Cornell Concert Series brings renowned cellist Maya Beiser to Statler Auditorium on Saturday, Oct. 30, at 8 p.m. Miroyuki Ito

To call Maya Beiser simply a cellist would be to sell her short. She has blazed trails throughout the classical and avant-garde fields of music, with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and as a soloist. Using video imagery, lighting effects and prerecorded tracks, she weaves an enthralling tapestry of sight and sound, sweeping her listeners into a land with no limits. Composer Steve Reich, whose Pulitzer Prize-nominated "Cello Counterpoint" Beiser performs in her "World to Come" concert program, says she is "doing for the cello what the Kronos Quartet did for the string quartet. ... She's saying, 'This is a different way to go.'"

On Saturday, Oct. 30, at 8 p.m., Beiser brings "World to Come" to Cornell's Statler Auditorium. The program includes pieces written for Beiser by Cornell alumnus Reich, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient Osvaldo Golijov and David Lang (whose "World to Come" gives the program its title), as well as video contributions designed by Irit Batsry and Anney Bonney.

Tickets for the concert are on sale at the ticket center at Clinton House, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Call 273-4497 or 800-284-8422. Tickets are $13-$22 for the general public and $8-$13 for students. The concert is sponsored by the Cornell Concert Series.

Born and raised on an Argentinian kibbutz in Israel, Beiser took up the cello at the age of 10. She received her master's degree at Yale University and studied with Aldo Parisot and Isaac Stern. She developed a passion for playing Bach's music, but her listening tastes for rock, blues and world music led her to gravitate toward new music. "The problem is that for too long the proportions have been all wrong," she said in a recent interview with Strings magazine. "On the concert stage, 90 percent of the music you hear is from the past, and we need to change that. Classical music certainly has its place, but we need to emulate the museums that display classical art while offering new exhibitions, or the dance world in which new things are always offered."

To that end, Beiser regularly performs commissioned pieces such as Lang's "World to Come," which was commissioned as part of the national series of works from Meet the Composer Commissioning Music/USA and made possible by support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Helen F. Whitaker Fund and the Target Foundation.