Having already performed as a soloist with the Houston Symphony and the Boston Pops, cellist Alexander Hersh has quickly established himself as one of his generation's most exciting and versatile talents. He has received top prizes at competitions worldwide, including the: 2022 Pro Musicis International Award, 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, 2019 Astral Artists National Auditions, National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Young Artists Competition, New York International Artists Association Competition, Friends of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ima Hogg, Schadt, Artist Concerts Series National Solo Competition, Luminarts Classical Music Fellowship, Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, Hellam Young Artist Competition, Boston Pops/New England Conservatory Competition, Jefferson Symphony International Young Artists Competition, Society of American Musicians, Saint Paul String Quartet, and the Fischoff National Chamber Music competition. 

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The Musiq3 critics of the RTBF Belgian Radio company gave Hersh’s performance at the inaugural Queen Elisabeth Cello Competition in Belgium in 2017 a rave review: “With his scenic presence and charm, Hersh has everything to become the darling of the public.”

    

A passionate chamber musician, Hersh has performed the complete string quartets of Béla Bartok and Alban Berg and much of the rest of the chamber music canon at music festivals worldwide including: Marlboro, Caramoor, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Music@Menlo, I-M-S Prussia Cove, Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, Amsterdam Cello Biennial, Kneisel Hall, Lucerne, New York String Orchestra Seminar, Domaine Forget, and the Meadowmount School of Music.  

    

Hersh is co-artistic director of NEXUS Chamber Music, a collective of international artists committed to stimulating interest in serious chamber music. NEXUS presents a two-week chamber music festival across Chicago each August, featuring new and obscure works alongside standard works of the chamber music canon. NEXUS plays to unusual and intimate venues with the mission of breaking down the barriers that often separate performers from audience members. 

     

A 4th generation string player, Alexander’s parents, Stefan and Roberta, are both active professional violinists. His grandfather, Paul Hersh, is a professor of viola and piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 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, Alexander Hersh began playing the cello at the age of 5. He studied with Steve Balderston and Hans Jørgen Jensen and attended the Music Institute of Chicago Academy. Hersh received his B.M. from New England Conservatory (with academic honours), where he was a student of Laurence Lesser and recipient of the Clara M. Friedlaender Scholarship. In May 2017, he received his M.M. from New England Conservatory, where he studied under the tutelage of Paul Katz and Kim Kashkashian. Hersh received the Frank Huntington Beebe fund for studies in Berlin during the 2017 - 2018 academic year, where he studied with Nicolas Altstaedt at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule for Musik Berlin. He plays a G.B. Rogeri cello on a generous loan from a sponsor through the Guarneri Hall Affiliate Artists program and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins in Chicago, IL.