Matt Haimovitz

with special guest, Du Yun Figment – works for solo cello, electronics and video

Chloé Dominguez

Works for solo cello and electronics

Elinor Frey

with special guest, Gabriel Spiegelschrift Works for solo cello and dancer

The evening, in three parts with two intermissions, presents each cellist in a solo set of works offering new perspectives on music for solo cello.

Matt Haimovitz’s new album and tour, FIGMENT is the latest evolution of the world-renowned cellist’s signature solo set, embracing the contemporary musical communities of his two home countries, Canada and the US.

Inspired by centenarian composer Elliott Carter and his two Figments for solo cello, the program brings together a wide range of important new music for solo cello and cello and electronics by leading and emerging North American composers. From the Middle Eastern microtones of Gilles Tremblay’s Cèdres en voile: Thrène pour le Liban, to Ana Sokolovic’s Balkan folk-influenced Vez, from Serge Provost’s cutting-edge Les Vertiges de S. for electronically-processed solo cello, to up and coming composer/songstress Du Yun’s San, a deconstruction of haunting ancient Chinese fragments. The program also includes music by Steven Stucky, Luna Pearl Woolf, and sample-artist Socalled.

Haimovitz will be joined by composer Du Yun on vocals, laptop, and keyboard to perform their original song, Miranda, and to improvise segues between the composed works, creating a seamless musical arc.

Sha Xin Wei, Director of Concodia University’s Topological Media Lab, has designed a real-time video interaction specially for the Figment tour.

For more information about Matt Haimovitz please visit: www.matthaimovitz.com For more information about Du Yun please visit: www.iceorg.org/about/artist/yun.html

Dynamic cellist Elinor Frey presents a set of wild and unusual works for solo cello. Frey and choreographer Gabreïl Spiegelschrift reunite for ‘ricordo al futuro – remembering the future’ set to Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XIV for violoncello. Inspired by Berio’s Harvard lectures, this second collaboration celebrates the ideas and thoughts of the late Italian composer. The pair presented their ‘he misses her’ set to Christopher Rouse’s Ricordanza in 2007. Among other works, Elinor will also perform Dutch master Louis Andriessen's La Voce which asks the cellist to recite Italian poetry as well as sing, and to play using two A-strings.

Delving into mysterious and sensual landscapes of texture and sound, cellist and Golden Violin Award winner Chloé Dominguez offers works for solo cello and electronics by composers from Montreal and around the world. Près by Grawermeyer award-winning composer Kaija Saariaho explores the real-time, recorded and live-processed sound of the cello to expand its own range of timbres while employing new cello techniques invented for the score. Also on the program are Mcgill Professor and Director of CIRMMT Sean Ferguson’s Miroirs, Dark Wood by Benjamin Broening, and Filon d’or by emerging Montreal composer David Adamcyk.

Elinor Frey and Chloé Dominguez are pursuing doctoral degrees in cello under the direction of Matt Haimovitz.