Matt Haimovitz Afternoon

Description

**Matt Haimovitz** A protégé of Rostropovich, Mr. Haimovitz specializes in playing along with nature, while remaining entirely undistracted, which demands an extreme but invisible virtuosity. He will contrast this summer the planetary gears of the Bach Suites with modern responses, which he has commissioned from great living composers such as Philip Glass. As the Bach Suites are a compendium of musical cultures from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the modern responses he adds translate these high structures into the multi-country vernacular of our own time. [http://www.matthaimovitz.com](http://www.matthaimovitz.com) The original manuscript of J.S. Bach’s 6 Suites for Cello Solo has been lost to history. The only remnant is a copy made by Anna Magdalena, Bach’s second wife, her handwriting uncanny in its likeness to the composer’s own. Since 1890, when Casals found a published copy in a second-hand music shop and first performed the suites in public 20 years later, the suites have been both Bible and Holy Grail of the solo cello repertoire – each cellist searching for his own way into the heart of this music. Cellist Matt Haimovitz has been closely associated with the Bach suites since the year 2000, when the former child prodigy jump-started the alt-classical revolution by performing the complete cycle in folk clubs and rock venues, including New York’s now-defunct punk palace CBGB’s. That same year, he released a 3-CD set of the Suites that launched the newborn Oxingale Records. Now, 15 years later, Mr. Haimovitz returns to The Cello Suites with a stunning new interpretation, intimately informed by Anna Magdalena’s manuscript and the tools of the time.

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