Matt Haimovitz begins 2013 with new Moravec recording & tour of India
With a world-premiere recording and his first tour of India, Grammy Award-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz begins 2013 in style. Out this month is Haimovitz’s recording of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s Montserrat: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra – an homage to the great Catalan cellist Pablo Casals – on the label of the Boston Modern Orchestral Project. In February, Haimovitz makes his first tour of India, which includes a concert for underprivileged children in Pune. All this activity follows a busy fall that saw the release of the cellist’s recording of Laura Schwendinger’s Esprimere: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, along with “Beyond Bach” showcases across North America and the continuation of his acclaimed duo tour with pianist Christopher O’Riley on behalf of their hit Oxingale album, the intrepid Shuffle.Play.Listen. In its review of the album, Strings magazine enthused: “Haimovitz’s musical zeal plus O’Riley’s amazing finesse equals a powerhouse sound that vacillates wildly between whispery plaintiveness, emotive intensity and enviable improvisational prowess.”
Haimovitz’s performance of Montserrat: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra is highlighted on Northern Lights Electric, the new all-Moravec Super Audio CD on the BMOP/sound label – just chosen as Q2 Music’s “Album of the Week.” Moravec’s cello concerto pays tribute to Pablo Casals and the mountaintop monastery that became like a second home to him. You can stream the music here. The album’s liner notes describe the concerto evocatively as “a piece that is by turns meditative and magisterial, serene and extravagant, inward-turning and exuberant … Montserrat grows gradually, but inevitably, from its brief ascending gesture, which the composer has taken from a plainchant that closes the ‘Magnificat’ section of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. The spiritual quality of Montserrat has deep roots in these 17th-century origins, in the sound of chimes that ring as if from a distance, both temporal and geographical.” Of Haimovitz’s performance, Q2 Music writes: “Pathbreaking cellist Matt Haimovitz commits fully and deeply to Montserrat: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Moravec’s homage to Casals, not only pulling off the virtuosic passages with the requisite panache but bringing a transcendent lyricism to the concerto’s meditative finale.”
The February tour of India – and two January dates in Spain – will see Haimovitz playing solo as well as with pianist Victoria Aja, in a program that mixes the Austro-German repertoire of Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann with Latin works by De Falla, Granados, and Piazzolla – with music by Philip Glass as an encore. The India tour takes in performances in both Mumbai and Pune. About his tour of India, Haimovitz says: “It’s hard to believe that this will be my first visit to India. It was thanks to the generosity of Zubin Mehta that my career was launched. Later, I met the great jazz guitarist John McLaughlin, whose band Shakti made a deep impression on me. I am still in wonder at how John inhabits the Indian modal and rhythmic traditions and fuses them with his own jazz background. I have worked on a few recordings with John, most recently our Grammy-nominated album Meeting of the Spirits based on his work with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Lately, I have been working with Philip Glass, who was a friend and collaborator with the late Ravi Shankar. Through music, I feel close to India, like a new friend that I seem to have known for ages – although I know the trip will bring many unexpected revelations.”
In the spring, Orange Mountain Music will release a recording of the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto No. 2 “Naqoyqatsi” that Haimovitz gave with the Cincinnati Symphony under Dennis Russell Davies last March. Haimovitz describes the concerto as “achingly beautiful music.” And a Scotsman review of Haimovitz’s world premiere of the Glass concerto, presented along with the Godfrey Reggio film Naqoyqatsi last year at the Edinburgh Festival, described the cellist’s performance as “stunning.” In April, Haimovitz returns to New York City to perform as part of the 75th birthday celebration for composer John Corigliano at Le Poisson Rouge.
Matt Haimovitz: upcoming engagements
Jan 18
State College, PA
Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley
Jan 29
San Sebastian, Spain
Teatro Victoria Eugenia with pianist Victoria Aja
Jan 30
Bilbao, Spain
Sociedad Filarmónica with pianist Victoria Aja
Feb 5
Mumbai, India
National Centre for the Performing Arts with pianist Victoria Aja
Feb 8
Pune, India
With pianist Victoria Aja
Feb 20
Montreal, Quebec
Salle Bourgie at the Beaux Arts Museum
Piazzolla and Bach Fugues
Feb 28
Montreal, Quebec
Redpath Hall, McGill University
“Remembering Erwin Schulhoff”
March 1-2
Allentown, PA
Schadt String Competition
March 9
Berkeley, CA
The Jewish Music Festival with clarinetist David Krakauer, Lisa Delan, others
Akoka – Re-Imagining Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time; world premiere of David Garner song cycle for soprano, clarinet, cello, and piano
March 11
Montreal, Quebec
Redpath Hall, McGill University
Beethoven: Trios Op. 70; Sonata Op. 69, with Tom Beghin (fortepiano) and Mark Fewer (violin)
March 17 & 18
Wuppertal, Germany
Dvorák: Cello Concerto
March 24:
Westchester, NY
Chamber Music with Pamela Frank, Andy Simionescu and friends
March 28
Coralville, IA
Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley
April 4
Montreal, Quebec
Pollack Hall, McGill University
“Suspense”, world premiere soundtrack by Luna Pearl Woolf for Uccello and the McGill Percussion Ensemble played live to the original 1913 film
April 12
Greenvale, NY
Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley
April 14
New Canaan, CT
“Beyond Bach”
April 26 & 27
Tacoma, WA
Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley
April 29
New York, NY
Le Poisson Rouge
John Corigliano 75th Birthday Celebration Concert
May 25
New Lebanon, NY
Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley
June 2
New York, NY
Barge Music with Gary Graffman, Pamela Frank and friends
June 15-16
Falls Village, CT
Music Mountain Festival
Music Mountain Chamber Orchestra with Peter Askim
June 19-July 1
Tour of Italy with Palo Alto Youth Chamber Orchestra
40th season anniversary tour and documentary
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