Tag Archives: Solo Cello

May 11 2012

Boston Globe: Matt Haimovitz ranges far and wide

May 11, 2012

“There’s something meditative . . . about the solo program and the way it evolves. It’s a kind of personal exhibition,” said Matt Haimovitz, who plays Gardner Museum Thursday

It has been an eventful few months for cellist Matt Haimovitz. He began the year touring with pianist Christopher O’Riley in support of the duo’s recent CD, “Shuffle.Play.Listen,” whose tracklist ranges from Janacek and Stravinsky to arrangements of Blonde Redhead and Cocteau Twins. In March he gave the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Continue reading →

Dec 10 2011

South Florida Classical Review: Haimovitz serves up a tour de force performance at string festival

December 10, 2011

SoBe Arts presented yet another superb evening of contemporary string music with the fourth concert of its American Masterworks String Festival, this time featuring cellist Matt Haimovitz.

A bona-fide virtuoso, Haimovitz debuted with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic at 13, recorded with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at 17, and made his Carnegie Hall debut in a string quintet with Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zukerman, and Mstislav Rostropovich.  However, he’s equally likely to perform at coffee houses and clubs, and was the first classical artist to play at the venerable punk club CBGB.

SoBe’s Little Stage Theater is along the lines of the latter, and Haimovitz was in his element, deftly Continue reading →

Oct 25 2011

Arts Atlanta: Refreshing the classical experience: Cellist Matt Haimovitz bucks convention in free concerts at Emory

October 25, 2011

Cellist Matt Haimovitz doing his thing. First you find the people, then you play for them.

Cellist Matt Haimovitz has either slipped off the grid of the classical music business or is defining its vibrant future. Perhaps both. He returns to Atlanta next week, offering music for solo cello that he calls “a human conversation with divine beauty.”

The Israeli-born, American-raised Haimovitz has come a long way since his Atlanta debut a quarter-century ago. As a kid, all of age 15, he played the Fox Theatre as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, a last-minute replacement for legendary pianist Claudio Arrau during the orchestra’s 1986 U.S. tour. Two years later, Haimovitz had snagged a recording contract with the then-prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. An observer would have predicated a conventional soloist’s career for the prodigal cellist. But with the collapse of the record industry, among other cultural shifts, the “conventional” part was not to be. Continue reading →