Matt Haimovitz

Emerging from his prodigious roots, Matt Haimovitz stands today among the most vibrant cellists active in classical music. His programs have included core repertoire while extending into less conventional territory, and he has carried performances outside traditional halls into venues such as nightclubs and restaurants. During 2024, audiences encountered his reading of Thomas de Hartmann's Cello Concerto, Op. 57 on the album Thomas de Hartmann: Rediscovered.

Born in Bat Yam, Israel, on December 3, 1970, Haimovitz relocated with his family to California at age five and began cello studies at seven under Irene Sharp and later Gabor Rejto. At twelve he appeared at a music camp attended by Itzhak Perlman, whose enthusiasm led to an introduction to cellist Leonard Rose; Rose, struck by the boy’s talent, guided his further training. The family settled in New York to allow lessons with Rose at the Juilliard School. In 1984, at thirteen, Haimovitz substituted for an indisposed Rose at Carnegie Hall in a concert shared with Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zukerman, and Shlomo Mintz. He received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1986. The following year he made his first recording for Deutsche Grammophon and thereafter followed the conventional path of concert-hall engagements and teaching posts.

Around 2000, Haimovitz recognized that his audiences rarely included listeners of his own generation. He attributed the disconnect to formal concert settings and began presenting programs in coffeehouses, bars, and nightclubs frequented by younger crowds. This shift also broadened his repertoire; in 2003 he inaugurated the “Anthem” tour, presenting works by living American composers across fifty states. Recordings issued primarily on Oxingale—founded in 2000 by Haimovitz and his wife, Luna Pearl Woolf—including Lemons Descending and Anthem, further introduced contemporary music to new listeners. Although critical reactions to the change in venues and programming have varied, audiences have responded positively and attend in numbers that fulfill Haimovitz’s aim. The American Music Center honored these efforts with its Trailblazer Award in 2005.

Haimovitz issued the album Vinyl Cello in 2007 and earned a Juno Award nomination the next year. In 2012 he gave the premiere of Glass’ Cello Concerto No. 2 “Naqoyqatsi” and released Shuffle.Play.Listen with Christopher O’Riley. He joined the Pentatone label in 2015, again collaborating with O’Riley on his first release for the company, Beethoven, Period. Pentatone reissued several earlier Oxingale recordings in 2018. In 2020 Haimovitz appeared with the Choir of Trinity Wall Street on Luna Pearl Woolf: Fire and Flood, a project that received a Grammy Award nomination. He has sustained an active schedule of performances and recordings into the mid-2020s, including his contribution to Thomas de Hartmann: Rediscovered and his recording of Luna Pearl Woolf’s opera Jacqueline, drawn from the life of cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who had mentored the young Haimovitz.

Between 1999 and 2004 Haimovitz taught at the University of Massachusetts; since 2004 he has taught at McGill University in Montreal and at the Domaine Forget de Charlevoix International Music Academy.