The Cal Poly Pomona Music Department Fall 2023 Shpachenko and Friends Chamber Music Festival is proud to feature renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz.
Haimovitz, praised by The New York Times as a “ferociously talented cellist who brings his megawatt sound and uncommon expressive gifts to a vast variety of styles” and by The New Yorker as “remarkable virtuoso” who “never turns in a predictable performance,” will perform with Grammy Award-winning pianist and CPP Music Professor Nadia Shpachenko. This concert, set for Nov. 2 at 8 p.m. in the Cal Poly Pomona Recital Hall, Building 24, will include on world two Los Angeles premieres and will feature mostly works by American and Ukrainian composers.
Haimovitz will perform solo pieces by J. S. Bach, Layale Chaker (LA premiere), Aaron Jay Kernis (LA premiere), Atar Arad (world premiere), pieces commissioned by THE PRIMAVERA PROJECT for Haimovitz, as well as compositions by Thomas de Hartmann in the first half. In the second half Shpachenko will join Haimovitz in performances of Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann's powerful Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 63 and Ukrainian composer Valentyn Silvestrov's Postludium for Cello and Piano.
Ticket sales will benefit Cal Poly Pomona student scholarships.
THE PRIMAVERA PROJECT is a momentous series of 81 commissions for solo cello, written for the groundbreaking, multi-Grammy-nominated cellist Haimovitz, responding to Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera(c.1480) and Charline von Heyl’s Primavera 2020 paintings. The project celebrates a rich tapestry of distinct and diverse compositional voices with recordings, videos, live and virtual events, and ultimately a multimedia theatrical production. Works by Arad and Kernis are featured on Haimovitz’s upcoming Nov. 24 release PRIMAVERA IV the heart, featuring an eclectic mix of new works by 13 composers who gravitate to various themes in the paintings.
The unsung hero of Ukrainian composition, de Hartmann was an important compositional voice in his own time, connected to the greatest musicians and artists of his era. His music unfortunately sunk into oblivion after his death in 1956. Haimovitz (with MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies) just released an EP featuring de Hartmann's cello concerto, which was composed in 1935 and premiered in 1938 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Serge Koussevitsky. The EP is part of the greater Thomas de Hartmann Project, aimed to reintroduce his colorful and compelling music to worldwide audiences.