Q+A: MATT HAIMOVITZ

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.

What: Las Vegas Philharmonic's "Masterworks II" featuring guest conductor David Itkin and cellist Matt Haimovitz

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Artemus Ham Hall, UNLV

Tickets: $27, $45, $69; 895-2787

Haimovitz brings string magic to Artemus Ham Hall

The last time Matt Haimovitz was in Las Vegas, he played the Icehouse Lounge, a downtown restaurant and bar. It was one of many club gigs on his "Anthem" CD tour, which featured solo works by living American composers and a cello rendition of the Jimi Hendrix' version of "The Star Spangled Banner."

This weekend, Haimovitz will be in Artemus Ham Hall performing Samuel Barber's Cello Concerto with the Las Vegas Philharmonic. It's just another stop in the musically diverse world of Haimovitz, who broke from the world-famous concert halls he was playing to tour the country rock 'n' roll style: in a car.

His cello quartet recording of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" is cleverly eclectic and rhythmically fascinating, but it doesn't mean he can't kick out a deeply moving and technically superb Bach Suite or Haydn Concerto. After all, he was a prodigy who successfully filled in for a teacher at Carnegie Hall while he was only 13.

But if anyone can rock out on a cello, the 35-year-old Haimovitz is the one to do it. He's like a modern-day Bartok (a composer Haimovitz reveres). Like Bartok, he explores multifarious worldly sounds that have fallen into classical compositions. And his aim is to bring classical music to the masses, particularly younger audiences who might be more likely to hear Haimovitz perform at a roadside bar or uptown coffee house than a concert hall.

Haimovitz talked with the Las Vegas Sun from a restaurant in Erie, Pa., where he was scheduled to perform the next night with the Erie Philharmonic.

I mix it up this year. The biggest thing I'm doing is "Buck the Concerto," (a series in which) I commission new works for cello. I played cello with a 20-piece big band to music by David Sanford, solo cello and choir (wife Luna Pearl Woolf's post-Katrina commission).

The third is being worked on by Tod Machover with MIT Media (Lab) and the Berkeley Symphony. The audience is going to be my orchestra. They're going to be wired to DJ Olive. Everyone's going to walk in and receive a glove and a baton. The glove will measure chemical impulses in the hand. With the baton, they can increase volume, speed by waving the baton. It's called "Vinyl Cello."

You've talked in the past about feeling disconnected with larger concert-hall audiences. Is this a way to reconnect?

On many levels, it's sort of a democratic concerto.

Do you feel distanced from audiences today?

Whether they're directly involved or not, I'm always working with the audience. The idea of walking in and feeling who's in the room impacts performers. That's what I try to bring back to the concert hall. You as a performer are not alone on stage. You're actually a human being connecting with the audience.

Was audience disconnect what led to your musical transformation?

It kind of evolved to that point and from wanting to see more of my generation in concert halls. And personally I need the diversity. Now I feel comfortable in both of these worlds. Now I am at the point of reconciliation of both worlds.

How did fans and industry professionals respond?

There was a sense of maybe I'd gone crazy. Why would I do what I'm doing? Now I see the next generation playing in alternative venues. When we first started, we wondered if Bach was still going to sound good in a bar or club.

What's the difference for you between the concert hall and the club?

The intimacy. You're with the audience. There's nothing separating you. They're drinking, that's different.

How did you end up at CBGBs, an underground rock club?

I thought of how New York could hear what I'd been doing all over the country. I thought of the least likely place you'd hear cello and I thought CBGBs.

How was it?

I felt that somehow we're kind of making history.

Thoughts on the Barber concerto you'll be playing this weekend?

I played it a few weeks ago in Spain. I really love this concerto . I think it really belongs up there. It's a really romantic concerto. The cadenzas are fairly modern. It really resonates even right now. It's very dark, very epic. The opening scene has a more cinematic feel. It definitely has its more modern touches. A very dramatic piece from 1945.

What's next for nontraditional music?

I'm working on Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun," Pink Floyd's "Dogs of War," some Frank Zappa.

Did you listen to Hendrix and Led Zeppelin as a child?

No, not at all. I didn't get to know them until my first year in college. I was just blown away by the music and the power.

Did you sense its relation to classical music?

When I heard "Kashmir," I heard a real Bartokian mode, a Turkish mode.

You've created some intriguing sounds with the cello. Is there anything the cello can't do?

I don't know what it can't do. It's the instrument that's most close to the human voice and the human voice can do almost anything.

Why the cello?

I found it really exotic.