Matt Haimovitz (; born December 3, 1970) is a cellist based in the United States and Canada. Born in Israel, he grew up in the US from the age of five. He plays mainly a cello made by Matteo Goffriller in 1710.
Family, musical education and early career Matt Haimovitz was born in the Israeli town of Bat Yam as son of Meir and Marlena Haimovitz, a Jewish couple who moved to Israel from Romania.Judy Polan, "Q & A with Matt Haimovitz",The Jewish Ledger, April 22, 2010 When he was 5 years old, the family settled in Palo Alto, California.
Haimovitz began to study the cello at the age of seven with Irene Sharp in California. At the age of nine, he switched teachers to Gábor Reitő. When Haimovitz was twelve years old, Itzhak Perlman, who was impressed by his performances at a music camp in Santa Barbara, introduced him to Leonard Rose. In order for him to study with Rose at the Juilliard School, his family moved to New York in 1983. Haimovitz attended high school at Collegiate School (New York City) on the Upper West Side. Rose described Haimovitz as "probably the greatest talent I have ever taught", praising his "ravishingly beautiful tone" and "unusual sense of style and musical sensitivity".
In February 1985, Haimovitz joined Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert which was filmed and broadcast. This success was followed in 1986 by an American tour with Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, as well as concerts with the New York Philharmonic. In the same year Haimovitz was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant for exceptional musical achievement, the youngest musician to receive this award. Over the next decade, Haimovitz appeared with many of the major orchestras of North America, Europe and Asia, and worked with the most distinguished conductors. In 1987, at the age of 17, Haimovitz signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, where several of his recordings of standard and non-standard repertoire won international awards.
Recent career After graduating from Harvard College in 1996, and with the termination of his contract with Deutsche Grammophon, Haimovitz became dissatisfied with the traditional career path of a modern classical musician. He began exploring non-standard classical and non-classical repertoire more intensively, and began a program of concerts in unusual venues. A 2002 North American tour that attracted international attention saw Haimovitz performing Bach's cello suites in night clubs, restaurants and other highly untraditional venues in a wide variety of towns and cities across the United States. This was followed in 2003 by Haimovitz's Anthem tour, in which he brought a variety of American compositions to a similar variety of audiences, including his rendition of Jimi Hendrix's famous improvisational rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
In 2000, Haimovitz founded his own record label, Oxingale with composer Luna Pearl Woolf, which has released CD recordings of his own recital programs, as well as music performed by others. In 2010 this label expanded to include a music publishing branch, which features works commissioned, performed, and recorded by Haimovitz.
"Shuffle. Play.Listen", his 2-disc collaboration with pianist Christopher O'Riley in 2011, was hailed for its innovation in mixing together Bernard Hermann film scores, Janácek, and Cocteau Twins. "The idea behind it is to blast away at any and all categories...", wrote Richard Ginell of the L.A. Times.
From 1999 to 2004, Haimovitz was a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts. Since 2004, he has taught at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal as well as the Domaine Forget academy for the arts in rural Quebec.
In June 2013, Haimovitz went on an international tour to Italy performing with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra. He also recorded Philip Glass' Cello Concerto No. 2 with Dennis Russell Davies and the Cincinnati Symphony; the concerto is a reworking of the film score ''Naqoyqatsi''.
From 2015 Oxingale and PENTATONE record label have joined forces and formed the PENTATONE Oxingale Series, re-releasing old albums - now also digitally available and distributed worldwide - and producing new ones. In 2015, Haimovitz released two recordings on PENTATONE using period instruments: the cello sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven, with pianist Christopher O'Riley; and a second recording of Bach's cello suites (on Haimovitz's earlier traversal, recorded in 2000, he had used a modernized cello and bow).
Discography Release date Album Label 1989 Saint-Saens: Cello Concertos / Bruch: Kol Nidrei / Lalo: Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra in D Minor Deutsche Grammophon 1990 Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, Boccherini: Cello Concertos Deutsche Grammophon 1992 Suites and Sonatas for Solo Cello - Reger: Suite in G major, Op. 131c/1; Crumb: Sonata; Britten: Suite No. 1, Op. 72; Ligeti: Sonata Deutsche Grammophon 1995 Trios with Rob Wasserman GRP Records 1995 The 20th Century Cello Deutsche Grammophon 1997 The 20th Century Cello Volume 2 Deutsche Grammophon 1999 Portes Ouvertes: The 20th Century Cello Volume 3 Deutsche Grammophon 1999 Undertree Oxingale Records 2000 Bach: 6 Suites for Cello Solo Oxingale Records 2001 Lemons Descending Oxingale Records 2002 The Rose Album Oxingale Records 2003 Anthem Oxingale Records 2003 Haydn: The Cello Concertos; Mozart: Cello Concerto Transart Live 2003 Hyperstring Trilogy Oxingale Records 2004 Please Welcome...Matt Haimovitz Oxingale Records 2004 Epilogue Oxingale Records 2005 Goulash! Oxingale Records 2006 Mozart the Mason Oxingale Records 2006 Apres Moi, le Deluge Oxingale Records 2007 David Sanford & the Pittsburgh Collective: Live at the Knitting Factory Oxingale Records 2007 After Reading Shakespeare Oxingale Records 2007 VinylCello Oxingale Records 2008 J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations Oxingale Records 2008 Odd Couple Oxingale Records 2008And if the song be worth a smilePentatone 2009 Figment Oxingale Records 2010 Meeting of the Spirits Oxingale Records 2011 Shuffle.Play.Listen (In collaboration with Christopher O'Riley Oxingale Records 2011 Matteo: 300 Years of Italian Cello Oxingale Records 2012 Paul Moravec: Northern Lights Electric BMOP/sound 2012 Laura Elise Schwendinger: Three Works Albany Music Distribution 2013 Glass: Cello Concerto No. 2 "Naqoyqatsi" Orange Mountain Music 2013The Hours Begin to SingPentatone 2013 AngelHeart Oxingale Records2014Akoka: Reframing Oliver Messiaen's Quartet for the End of TimeOxingale Records2015Beethoven, Period.PENTATONE2015OrbitPENTATONE2015J.S. Bach The Cello Suites According to Anna MagdalenaPENTATONE2016Shuffle.Play.ListenPENTATONE2016Schubert Arpeggione Sonata & String QuintetPENTATONE2016Ouvertures to BachPENTATONE2016Out of the ShadowsPENTATONE2017Akoka - Reframing Messiaen's Quartet for the End of TimePENTATONE2017Meeting of the SpiritsPENTATONE2017TroikaPENTATONE2018PENTATONE OXINGALE SERIES ''MOZART DIVERTIMENTO & Preludes to Bach"PENTATONE2018PENTATONE OXINGALE SERIES "Tippet Rise Opus 2017"PENTATONE2018PENTATONE OXINGALE SERIES ''Isang Yun - Sunrise Falling"PENTATONE2020MON AMI, Mon Amour - French Repertoire for Cello and Piano (with Mari Kodama)PENTATONE2021OXINGALE PRESENTS Primavera I: the windPENTATONE2022OXINGALE PRESENTS PRIMAVERA II: the rabbitsPENTATONE2022OXINGALE PRESENTS Primavera III: the vesselPENTATONE2023De Hartmann: Cello ConcertoPENTATONE2024Thomas de Hartmann RediscoveredPENTATONE2024Jacqueline (with Marnie Breckenridge / Luna Pearl Woolf)PENTATONE2025Schnittke: Cello Concerto No. 1PENTATONE2025La KobsaPENTATONE2026The Bach DialoguesPENTATONE
References
Further reading Online version is titled "An emotional reunion between cello and cellist".
Notes
External links Haimovitz official biography Matt Haimovitz Interview Oxingale records Hear Matt Haimovitz in concert from WGBH boston "Redefining Success, Off the Beaten Track - Cellist Matt Haimovitz, Bringing Bach to the Bar Band Stage" - review by Richard Scheinin in "San Jose Mercury News, 4.20.2005 Discography on Deutsche Grammophon BACH & friends Documentary Artist representation on National Public Radio