Matt Haimovitz 2004-Oct-12 @us75.com/studio/

MATT HAIMOVITZ'S
50-STATE ANTHEM TOUR

Cellist Matt Haimovitz has established himself as one of classical music's most adventurous artists, equally at ease playing the masterworks for his instrument in solo, chamber and concerto performances in leading concert halls as he is bringing classical music to new listeners in surprising new venues.

Haimovitz has been "busily reinventing the classical recital for the new millennium," commencing his 50-state "Anthem" tour on September 11, 2003 in celebration of living American composers. The performances have received universal praise, and the "Anthem" album has appeared on numerous top 10 lists, including the Best classical Album of 2003 on Amazon.com. In 2004, the American Music Center has awarded Haimovitz one of its highest distinctions, the Trailblazer Award, for his far-reaching contribution to American music. Prior to the "Anthem" tour, Haimovitz made headlines with his path-breaking performances of Bach's 6 Suites for Cello Solo. He struck a nerve in the music world with his innovative Bach "Listening-Room" Tour, taking Bach's beloved cello suites out of the concert hall and performing them in intimate clubs and coffeehouses across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., to great acclaim. ...

Complete article at Oxingale.com

Read about the ANTHEM CD

The Hyperstring Trilogy (from Tod Machover's program notes for the Lincoln Center Premiere)
With Joe Chung, I had started the development of Hyperinstruments at the MIT Media Lab in 1986, for the purpose of enhancing and expanding performance virtuosity through technology. Partly motivated by the negative example of sophisticated digital studio recording that risked taking the spontaneity and intuition out of music-making, we sought to develop techniques that would allow the performer's normal playing technique and interpretive skills to shape and control computer extensions to the instrument, thus combining the warmth and "personality" of human performance with the precision and clarity of digital technology. In fact, the whole hyperinstrument idea is an extension of my general musical philosophy: to convey complex experience in a simple and direct way.

Photo of Hypercello

TOD MACHOVER was less lucky with technology. Hypercellist — and supercellist — Matt Heimovitz’s plane arrived late from London, so the beginning of the hypertrilogy was delayed to give him some breathing space. After a brief demonstration, Begin Again Again . . . , the Inferno of Machover’s Divine Comedy, began. But suddenly Heimovitz was playing solo — that is, the computers weren’t producing the marvelous electronic textures generated by the sensors on his bow and by an electronic glove on his bowing hand (all the music, including the electronic augmentation, is live). “It doesn’t have this title for nothing,” Machover joked, and so after a short break to reboot (he called these old Macs “historical instrument computers”), Begin Again Again . . . began again. READ ARTICLE

JIMI HENDRIX'S
STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
AT WOODSTOCK

By the third morning of the original Woodstock music festival, attendees had endured crowds and gridlock and storms. Many were becoming aware they were making history, but they were probably mostly just kind of cold and hungover by that third morning.

Onstage in the dawning light, a rising new pop star, a hippy- trippy-looking black dude who had made his mark earlier performing in Europe, and then at the Monterey Pop Festival, playing electric guitar like no one had ever done before. That morning at Woodstock, folks were awakened in grand tradition with the Star-Spangled Banner, but performed as none had ever heard it, nor even imagined it being performed.

This music festival came amidst a time of social chaos, an America divided across lines of politics, race, and war, fights and divisions against which Woodstock itself became a symbol of peace and unity. Suddenly cutting through the landscape came this rousing rock reville, stirring those deep-rooted patriotic thrills and filled with all the freedom-loving, loud, extreme power of amplified rock. With screaming strings and whining feedback, Jimi Hendrix created an anthem so powerful you could hear the rockets, the bombs bursting in air, a Star-Spangled Banner that would make the hard-hearted anarchist rock fan stand up and salute.

Hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner has become a classic of rock. Moments such as this remarkable Woodstock performance of the American anthem re-shaped our thinking in those years, and such thinking expands to profoundly affect generations to come. Young teenagers today, whose parents were infants when Hendrix was alive, hole up in their bedrooms repeatedly playing an MP3 of that long-ago guitar solo, trying to emulate his licks. We've enjoyed a few performers' attempts at re-creating Hendrix's version on our stage here at us75.com/. Even performed with less-than-Hendrix flair, it's evocative, joyous, as unrestrained as American ideals of liberty.

One day, on NPRadio, we heard Matt Haimovitz perform his version of Jimi Hendrix's incredible electrified amplified national anthem... on an acoustic cello. I thought, Jimi would have been impressed. I know I was.

Tuesday should be a great show. Hope you can join us. :D

Jimi-Hendrix.com

Live at Woodstock 35th Anniv. CD