“Maya Beiser, the reigning queen of the avant-garde cello, has been pushing out the boundaries of her instrument for years, but in a rapturous, high-intensity performance on Saturday night at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, it was clear she’s now aiming at almost transcendental heights. Switching between electric and amplified acoustic cellos, using electronics to build huge and sweeping juggernauts of sound, Beiser knitted pop and overtly spiritual music together — and found a deep, almost devotional thread running through everything she played.” - The Washington Post

“She has the chops to make her cello a license-to-kill instrument …Her sense of invention borders on stupendous … Some of the songs are like tone poems, often bringing genre-defying music into modern global music consciousness.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer

“a titanic channeling of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Black Dog’ … this wasn’t anything that should be called crossover, cello-rock, or any other portmanteau genre. It was hard rock, full stop. Beiser sounds like she’s reaching deep into these songs to nd personal expression within their boundaries … Her eclecticism is borne out in her body of work, spanning multimedia performance pieces, a cello opera, and compositions written for her by Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Whether plucking out Kurt Cobain’s rhythmic intro from “Lithium” or emphatically bowing an extended solo in Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing” that was all drama, Beiser proved to be a fully expressive performer. She rocked convincingly one minute and teased out lyricisms another.” - The Boston Globe