Concert Review: Matt Haimovitz

A while back, I heard an NPR story on the cellist Matt Haimovitz: Cellist Channels Bela Bartok... Led Zeppelin, Too. He has a good sense of current music and reaching people in our age cohort: Cellist Matt Haimovitz has a knack for showing up in odd places. In 2002, he gave the first-ever classical music performance at New York's legendary punk rock club, CBGB. More recently, he visited all 50 states for his "Anthem" tour, performing Bach at venues such as Austin's Cactus Cafe, and The Palms in Davis, Calif. He and his string quartet did a pretty cool acoustic version of Zeppelin's Kashmir; I liked it enough that I bought it from iTunes. So I was surprised to find that he was playing at the local chamber music society, doing solo cello. I knew that despite being behind on work, I couldn't pass up this opportunity.

He played several Bach cello suites--I'm quite familiar with them, and really love them. He interspersed some 20th century music as well--Ligeti's Sonata for cello (for my records, two movements: I. Dialogo: Adagio, Rubato, Cantabile II. Capriccio: Presto Con Slancio). He also played two new commissions from Pulitzer prize-winning contemporary composers: Lewis Spratlin and Paul Moravec (no, I don't know them either--and I call myself a music geek. Sheesh.).

In the modern pieces, there were several great 'how does he do that?' moments--such as extended glissando slides on strings. Also, he bowed a melody on a high string, while simultaneously playing ostinato pizzicato arpeggios on the remaining strings (sorry... that was full of music jargon; let me know if you need translation).

I decided that I wanted to support contemporary music enough that I bought one of Haimovitz's CDs at the concert: Après Moi, le Deluge, a post Katrina lament for solo cello and a cappella choir. Poet Eleanor Wilner captures the havoc and despair of the Katrina aftermath, using Noah and his ark as a political allegory to make a provocative, critical statement. The work was commissioned by cellist Matt Haimovitz as part of his "Buck the Concerto" series. I'll give it a listen sometime today.

There were some amusing and incongruous moments. For instance, the local chamber music society seems to be somebody's house; it feels like you're intruding into their living room, with improvised seating made out of LP record shelves. The decor of the music room was decidedly Brady Bunch 1970's chic. Also, there was an older audience member who fell asleep during the recital, and started whistling/snoring--loudly--throughout.

Another thing that bothered me was the demographics of the audience--despite Haimovitz's youthful appeal, only a small fraction (less than 25%, maybe 10%) were in the thirtysomething or younger range. I know the graying of the classical music audience has long been a concern. I've seen it (but to a lesser degree) in New York and at the BSO; but it was even more striking with this audience. I finished Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class: Perlick's review here, which summarizes the book better than I will. Florida pointed out that younger 'creative class' audiences tend to reject structured and passive audience events, such classical music concerts or sports games. Instead, they prefer more interactive experiences, such as walking down the street and popping in and out of music clubs to sample what's going on. It does not bode well for 'big classical music' as an institution--I know people have been forecasting this for a while, but I wonder and worry what direction it will take.