Haimovitz’s Shuffle.Play.Listen tour goes to NYC’s Highline Ballroom
Cellist Matt Haimovitz has long been at the forefront of bridging the divide between the camps of classical and popular music, covering the likes of Jimi Hendrix and taking Bach to rock clubs before playing rock clubs was cool for classical types. Now high praise has been pouring in for Shuffle.Play.Listen, his new boundary-blurring double-album with pianist Christopher O’Riley. Reviews have declared the release “a stimulating step forward” (All Music Guide) and “awfully persuasive… deeply connected” (Baltimore Sun). Released in September by Oxingale Records, the 2-CD set juxtaposes 20th-century classics by Stravinsky, Janácek, Martinu, Piazzolla and Bernard Herrmann with bold arrangements by O’Riley of art-rock songs by the likes of Radiohead and Arcade Fire and the jazz-rock of John McLaughlin. Haimovitz and O’Riley will continue to present Shuffle.Play.Listen in concerts across the country in 2012.
Their extensive tour takes the duo to major concert series and university residencies across the U.S., including dates at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center (Jan 18), NYC’s Highline Ballroom (Jan 22) and Boston’s Regattabar (Feb 8). Haimovitz and O’Riley have posted videos from Shuffle.Play.Listen’s recording sessions on YouTube. Watch their extended improvisation on John McLaughlin’s Lotus on an Irish Spring here. Also on YouTube are videos of their performances of songs by Arcade Fire (“Empty Room”) and Blonde Redhead (“Misery Is a Butterfly”).
Haimovitz will also tour on his own in 2012, in programs ranging from solo cello recitals to the concerti of Shostakovich and Saint-Saëns. The cellist will also give the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto No. 2 (“Naqoyqatsi”) with the Cincinnati Symphony and Dennis Russell Davies on March 30-31. A Scotsman review of Haimovitz’s August performance with the Glass Ensemble accompanying the Godfrey Reggio film at the Edinburgh Festival described the cellist’s performance as “stunning.” Haimovitz describes playing the Glass concerto without the film: “It is achingly beautiful music that makes the accompanying images of violence and war almost palatable. It is an amazing experience to play with the film, but I’m looking forward to being liberated from the visual element and able to express the essence of the music.”
Matt Haimovitz & Christopher O’Riley: upcoming duo performances
January 18, 2012
Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Cerritos, CA
January 22, 2012
Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
February 8, 2012
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
February 16, 2012
Tobias Theater, Indianapolis Museum of Arts, Indianapolis, IN
February 18, 2012
Lied Center of Kansas, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
March 24, 2012
GMU Center for the Arts, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
April 15, 2012
Theater at Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh, PA
www.matthaimovitz.com