Maya Beiser

What struck me about Maya Beiser is her fearlessness. She tells me she was a fragile, vulnerable child and she used to hide herself behind her cello, where she felt safe. In her musical career, she shows a fearless quality by the way she bridges any divide there may be between classical and rock music, exploring and experimenting with new ideas, new music, new ways of performing. And despite her large fan base in the US, it is also the way she manages the potential criticism from the press.

She talks about her diverse and varied background being brought up in a Kibbutz in Israel and how it enabled her to be more of a ‘creator’ than ‘re-creator’ in her playing, and how Janis Joplin was as much of an influence on her, as was Jacqueline Du Pré.