January 20, 2010

H. Thomson

Country, hip-hop, metal—cobblers in certain genres pretty much stick to their lasts and aren’t known for exploring music outside their boundaries. (Go ahead, deny it. With counterexamples.) The musicians with the broadest tastes and most ravenous curiosities tend to be rooted in classical—naturally enough, since the term itself covers about a millennium of music. Setting the standard is cellist Matt Haimovitz, who plays, basically, everything everywhere: Bach to Led Zeppelin, around the world and in all 50 states, from concert halls to taverns. Tonight he’s bringing music from his new CD, Figment, including two short pieces of that name by Elliott Carter, one capricious, the other more oratorical, even majestic; Gilles Tremblay‘s Cèdres en Voile, subtitled Threnody for Lebanon, in which the cello keens and wails in timbres unsettlingly like a human voice; and Steven Stucky‘s Dialoghi, rich with passages of subdued but arresting songfulness. Interspersed with all these works, none older than 1989, are pieces from the extreme other end of the cello repertory: Ricercare from 1689 by Domenico Gabrieli, likely the earliest pieces ever written for cello alone. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599, tractortavern.com. $15 (21 and over.) 8 p.m.

by Gavin Borchert

View article at Seattle Arts Weekly