Matt Haimovitz in 2012-13: three CD releases, first tour of India, more

For Grammy Award-nominated cellist Matt Haimovitz, the 2012-13 season is an eventful one, with the release of three major recordings; his first tour of India; more of his intrepid “Beyond Bach” solo showcases across North America; “flash” concerts in unlikely locations; and a continuation of the highly praised duo tour with pianist Christopher O’Riley on behalf of their hit Oxingale album, Shuffle.Play.Listen. The new Haimovitz recordings will showcase cello concertos by composers Paul Moravec, Philip Glass, and Laura Schwendinger. The cellist’s “Beyond Bach” performances will range from Bach and Gabrieli to Cage and Luna Pearl Woolf’s arrangement of the Beatles’ Helter Skelter. And Haimovitz’s Shuffle.Play.Listen concerts with O’Riley see the duo juxtaposing 20th-century classics by Stravinsky, Janácek, Martinu, Piazzolla, and Bernard Hermann with bold arrangements of art-rock songs by Radiohead and Arcade Fire, as well as the jazz-rock explorations of John McLaughlin. UK critic Norman Lebrecht’s words on Shuffle.Play.Listen encapsulate the enthusiastic response to the project: “Categories are irrelevant. This is good music, fabulously played.”
 
Haimovitz kicked off his season this month with back-to-back appearances – solo at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, and with the conductorless orchestra A Far Cry as part of his residency at Denison University in Ohio. His residencies at universities across North America include flash concerts, such as the one where Haimovitz played Bach in front of the Denison University library – a video clip can be seen here. Along with formal and informal performances, the cellist’s university residencies involve master classes and performance-demonstrations, as well as engaging with students, teachers, and donors at dinners and other campus events. Haimovitz also recently played a flash concert of Bach for WQXR on the Highline in New York City, which you can see here.
 
Today, October 16, the Boston Modern Orchestral Project label releases Northern Lights Electric, a Super Audio CD recording devoted to the music of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec, offering his Montserrat: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra with Haimovitz in the solo role. Moravec’s concerto is an homage to the great Catalan cellist Pablo Casals and the mountaintop monastery that became like a second home to him. 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.”
 
Also due this fall is Haimovitz’s recording of Esprimere: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by American composer Laura Schwendinger (b. 1962), produced by Grammy Award-winner Judith Sherman for Albany Records. Haimovitz gave the world premiere of the piece in 2007 in Madison, WI, where the composer is a professor of composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and artistic director of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. The San Francisco Chronicle has described Schwendinger’s work as “music of considerable power.” For his part, Haimovitz calls Esprimere “probably the most difficult piece I’ve ever played.”
 
In the spring, Orange Mountain Music will release a recording of the US 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 along with the Godfrey Reggio film Naqoyqatsi last year at the Edinburgh Festival, described the cellist’s performance as “stunning.” WQXR previewed a single movement from the concerto recording during its Glass festival last month.
 
There will be more high-profile concert activity in the New Year for Haimovitz, with January concerts in Spain and his first tour of India in February (with stops in Mumbai, Pune, and Bangalore). In April, the cellist returns to New York City to perform at the 75th birthday celebration for composer John Corigliano at Le Poisson Rouge.
 
 
Matt Haimovitz: upcoming engagements
 
Oct 18
Columbia, MO
“Beyond Bach”
 
Oct 20
Mission Hills, KS
“Beyond Bach”
 
Oct 27
Appleton, WI
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
Oct 30
Baton Rouge, LA
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
Nov 1 & 2
Joplin, MO
“Beyond Bach”
 
Nov 4
Oklahoma City, OK
“Beyond Bach”
 
Nov 8
Clinton, SC
“Beyond Bach”
 
Nov 12
Pasadena, CA
“Beyond Bach”
 
Nov 21
Montreal, Quebec
Brahms: Piano Quartet in A major, String Sextet in B-flat major
Fauré: Piano Quartet in D minor
 
Nov 30
Flushing, NY
“Beyond Bach”
 
Jan 18
State College, PA
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
Jan 29
San Sebastian, Spain
Program TBA
 
Jan 30
Bilbao, Spain
Program TBA
 
February 5
Mumbai, India
Program TBA
 
Feb 8
Pune, India
Program TBA
 
Feb 20
Montreal, Quebec
Program TBA
 
Feb 28
Montreal, Quebec
Works by Schulhoff
 
March 17 & 18
Wuppertal, Germany
Dvorák: Cello Concerto
 
March 28
Coralville, IA
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
April 12
Greenvale, NY
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
April 14
New Canaan, CT
“Beyond Bach”
 
April 27
Tacoma, WA
“Shuffle.Play.Listen” with Christopher O’Riley
 
April 29
New York, NY: Le Poisson Rouge
John Corigliano’s 75th birthday concert
 
 
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