Lincoln Center Gives Weilerstein and Kail Segal Award

The 2008 Martin E. Segal Awards were presented to cellist Alisa Weilerstein and director Thomas Kail at a luncheon at Lincoln Center's Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse on Tuesday, March 18.  Each winner, both of whom are in their mid-20s, received $7,500 to be used for future study and career advancement.  This year marks a $2,500 increase in the size of the cash award.  Now in its 22nd year, the distinguished Award is given annually to two rising young artists in recognition of outstanding achievement. Lincoln Center Chairman Frank A. Bennack, Jr. and President Reynold Levy presided over the event.  Martin Segal, in whose name the Award was established, also participated in the ceremony. 

On a rotating basis since the inception of the prize, two of Lincoln Center's twelve resident arts constituents have been asked to nominate an artist or ensemble associated with their organization to receive the Martin E. Segal Award.  This year's winners were selected by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The Martin E. Segal Awards were established by Lincoln Center's Board of Directors and a group of Mr. Segal's friends and colleagues when he retired as Lincoln Center Chairman in 1986. The Awards mark Mr. Segal's demonstrated history of leadership and commitment to supporting and developing the careers of up-and-coming artists.  

American cellist Alisa Weilerstein made her Mostly Mozart debut at Lincoln Center this past summer as the soloist in the New York premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's  Azul  for cello and orchestra.  Her performance of the work and a formidably difficult Kodaly cello sonata during the Festival were hailed as "immensely gifted" and "staggering" by The New York Times. Ms. Weilerstein's connections to Lincoln Center also include her receipt of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant at age 18, and selection for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two young artists program in 2000.  She subsequently made two tours of Florida with the Society as a guest artist.

Among her regular appearances with top orchestras throughout the U.S. and Europe, Ms. Weilerstein performs in 2007-08 with the Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto Symphonies as well with Russia's St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, and gives numerous recitals both stateside and abroad at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and in Bergamo, Bologna, and Milan, Italy.  A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music's Young Artist Program, she often plays with her parents as part of the Weilerstein Trio, the trio-in-residence at Boston's New England Conservatory.  Next year, she returns to the New York Philharmonic and makes her subscription debut with the Boston and Chicago Symphonies and the Cleveland Orchestra.  Notable engagements have included tours of Japan and Australia, and participation in the European Concert Hall Organization's Rising Stars recital series.  In 2006, Alisa Weilerstein was named the winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award, which was presented at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival. 

Director Thomas Kail made his Broadway debut nine days ago with the official opening of his new musical, In The Heights, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.  With music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegria Hudes, the show—about three days in the life of Washington Heights—originally opened off-Broadway in February 2007 at the 37 Arts Theater for a run of 182 performances.  Mr. Kail was the recipient of the 2006-07 Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers' Joseph A. Callaway Award and was nominated for a Drama Desk and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his work on the production.

While scouting for promising new works, Patrick Hoffman, director of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Theater on Film and Tape Archive, immediately identified In The Heights as a musical that should be preserved, and taped the show for the Library's archives in June 2007.  Much later, it was discovered that Kail was a frequent visitor to the Library and had for several years been using its extensive resources for research.  Thomas Kail is artistic director and co-founder of Back House Productions (BHP), the resident theater of New York City's The Drama Book Shop.  BHP has developed many new works since its founding in 2001, including early versions of In The Heights and Anne Nelson's Savages.  After directing Jules Feiffer's Feifer's People for BHP, Kail was asked by the playwright to stage an evening of his work during a retrospective of his career at the New York Historical Society.  Mr. Kail also directs and co-created Freestyle Love Surpreme, a hip-hop improv group that in 2005 performed at Ars Nova in New York City, the Aspen Comedy and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and the 2006 Melbourne Comedy Festival.  He has directed Anne Nelson's 9/11 play The Guys all over the east coast, and produced and co-directed the short documentary Critical Hours, which was an official selection of the New York Television Festival and Kids First Film and Video Festival. Thomas Kail is a graduate of Wesleyan University.