A top laureate of the Naumburg International Cello Competition, Alexander Hersh is widely recognized as one of the most creative and versatile cellists of his generation. Praised for his 2022 Carnegie Hall debut recital, he has appeared as soloist with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Dallas Chamber Symphony and Boston POPS, and received top prizes from the Pro Musicis International Award, Astral Artists National Auditions and Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant.
An avid chamber musician, Hersh has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and performed at leading festivals including Marlboro, Chamber Music Northwest, Ravinia, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Lucerne and IMS Prussia Cove. He is co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music, an artist-led collective dedicated to breaking down the barriers for how classical music is experienced through intimate performances, multimedia projects and new commissions.
His debut album, ABSINTHE (2023), received critical acclaim, and he was recently featured on PBS’s Now Hear This series in an episode exploring the music of Boccherini.
A fourth-generation string player, Hersh's parents are both active professional violinists; his grandfather, Paul Hersh, taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for 49 years; and his great-grandfather, Ralph Hersh, was a member of the WQXR and Stuyvesant String Quartets and principal violist of the Dallas and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras.
Raised in Chicago, Hersh began playing the cello at the age of five. He received his B.M. and M.M. from New England Conservatory and continued his studies in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik. His teachers have included Laurence Lesser, Hans Jørgen Jensen, Kim Kashkashian, Nicolas Altstaedt and Paul Katz. He plays a G.B. Rogeri cello, courtesy of Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins. In his spare time, he composes original music and creates short films that marry classical music with narrative, viewable on his YouTube channel: @AlexanderHersh.
