Not fulfilled by playing on stuffy recital stages or delivering predictable interpretations of sonatas, the former child prodigy decided to take a different path. He wanted to play music with a message, and he wanted as many people as possible to hear it. So on Sept. 11, 2003, he launched a 50-state tour in support of his latest album, “Anthem,” not of concert halls or arenas, but of pizza parlors and punk rock bars. Eschewing Carnegie Hall for CBGB’s, Haimovitz hopes to shatter the myth that classical music is a stodgy genre, more suitable for older listeners. “Anthem,” as the title suggests, is a political statement of sorts. The title tune is Haimovtiz’s interpretation of Jimi Hendrix’s famously bombastic rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The rest of the album is a collection of works by contemporary composers, largely inspired by the events of 9/11 and those that unfolded in its wake.
Haimovitz, 33, recently spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about his challenging music, the logic behind the tour and how he has been received in the heartland. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: You launched your tour on Sept. 11, 2003. Why?
Matt Haimovitz: Well, several of the pieces that were commissioned for “Anthem,” the new album, were responses to the tragedy of 9/11. In some sense this is my own personal response and evolution both post-9/11 as a musician and just taking a larger perspective on what the role is of a touring artist.
Are you making a political statement?
The title track of “Anthem,” the Hendrix, definitely has political connotations. I think you can experience it as a piece of music but for those who have the associations with Hendrix when he made that statement right in the middle of the Vietnam War at Woodstock, for me it was very patriotic to be able to express that kind of freedom in a time of war is what strengthens and makes this country so great. In a sense that’s what I am doing–celebrating American composers and patriotically looking at our own culture but at the same time feeling unease about the political atmosphere. Through music I do what I can to bring attention to what I think are more positive developments within America.
Such as?
We have these great composers here. We have this great culture. Traveling the country since Sept. 11, I’ve really gotten to know this country in a much closer way–the diversity of people and landscapes, the microcultures across the country and people expressing their opinions freely and taking a stand and challenging each other in that way. You also see the response in New York City after 9/11, these wonderful developments you wish could be taken advantage of by the government that this is an opportunity for uniting the world and making a hopeful statement. Instead you see these images coming back every day of violence and cycles of violence.
You’re playing a lot of places in that heartland. I would imagine that there’s a lot of pro-war crowds that you encounter. You’re also taking classical music into venues where it isn’t usually heard. Are you meeting any resistance?
Surprisingly not as much as I would have thought on this tour. There’s a lot of support for what I’m doing. When I get to the Hendrix I make perhaps a political comment, but my agenda is really not to influence people to vote in a certain way or anything like that. My real goal with this tour is to get this music out there. There have been a couple of disappointments along the way–there was a radio station in Denver that boycotted the album. They decided not to play anything of mine because they disagreed with my politics. Recently I was actually booed in Wolfeboro, N.H. I was surprised–I thought it was a Democratic stronghold. They saw my playing the Hendrix as a flag-burning of sorts.
You’ve also played CBGB’s, a punk club. How was that?
CB’s was great. The audience that normally shows up there is so open to anything. That’s what I’m finding generally on this tour. People are coming into these venues without any prejudices. There’s so much baggage that’s built up with contemporary classical music over the last 30 or 40 years, it’s really alienated audiences.
And it’s for this sort of approach and attitude toward classical music that you were singled out for this Trailblazer award?
I think it’s partly that and that I’m an unlikely protagonist for this tour-playing in alternative venues and also being an advocate of contemporary music. Really, it wasn’t until my first year in college that I started to work with living composers. I was really brought up in a very classical mold, the romantic virtuoso tradition going to Juliard and all of that. So I think going from that to this got their attention.
Why don’t we see more classical musicians doing this sort of thing? Why is it so anomalous to have classical music in some of these clubs?
I ask myself that question now also. When I first started this, because of the way I was brought up and because of the isolated world of classical music, it was terrifying to step out that first time onto one of these rock ’n’ roll stages and realize that I’m totally exposed, totally vulnerable to the people there. I couldn’t simply address them on a musical level; I had to be a human being to them. This is something that is just not part of the classical upbringing. You are brought up to distance yourself to some extent: you have a stage, be larger than life and perfection. I know there are many musicians of my generation looking out there having the same questions that I do: Where is our generation? Why aren’t they appreciating this music that is some of the greatest achievements of human imagination? It’s not elite music; it’s music for everyone.
Who are some of the contemporary composers you’re playing?
I’m playing David Sanford, he wrote “Seventh Avenue Kaddish,” which is a response to 9/11 and is inspired by John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Toby Twining also wrote a piece for the album [called] “9:11 Blues,” a blues-influenced piece that also is a response to 9/11, using the ninth and 11th overtones of the harmonic series. He’s a microtonal composer so it’s really pretty spectacular what he does. I’m playing Luna Pearl Wolf, who is the producer of the album and also my wife.
Do you have any crazy stories from the road?
At Churchill’s in Miami, a great club that happens to be situated right in a Haitian slum, was very intimate and had Haitians, Cuban-Americans, a few older Jewish couples. Just a real mix of people. As I was playing I kind of felt like nobody quite knew why they were there–that was my “Blues Brothers” chicken-wire moment. One after another they started to identify with a different piece that I was playing: The stereotypical hip-hop guy with the metal teeth and the whole thing, when I mentioned that I was going to play Bach, he smiled. That surprised me. When I played a [Osvaldo] Golijov piece that’s inspired by Astor Piazzolla, the South Americans there really got into it. When I started playing blues-jazz pieces, that won over another part of the crowd and so on. Finally, at the end when I played the Hendrix, I felt I had all these people into the music,which they had never come into contact with. That was very special.
