OUT NOW | Cellist Matt Haimovitz's New Album "Primavera I: the wind"

Released on the Pentatone Oxingale Series label, the multi-Grammy nominated cellist’s new album was inspired by visual art

This digital album features the first 14 of 81 new pieces composed for Haimovitz and commissioned by THE PRIMAVERA PROJECT — an exploration of music and art as sources of impact and inspiration for each other.

The initiative asks composers to write music responding to Sandro Botticelli’s enigmatic c. 1480 painting, “Primavera,” and the prophetic large-scale painting, “Primavera 2020,” by contemporary artist Charline von Heyl. Haimovitz recorded the album in January 2021 at von Heyl’s studio in Texas.

All 81 original works will be recorded for commercial release, with Haimovitz having recorded the next album in late May of this year. PRIMAVERA II will be released in the fall of 2021.

“The world has been fractured and on the brink long before the pandemic decimated the performing arts,” said Haimovitz in a press release. “The musical commissions of THE PRIMAVERA PROJECT celebrate our golden age of musical diversity and richness.

“Each new piece — like the blossoming flowers, figures, and symbols of Charline von Heyl’s and Sandro Botticelli’s Primaveras — has been a ray of light, offering us hope for the renewal of the human spirit,” he added.

“I felt a sense of kinship from the very first conversation with Matt and Charline,” said Jeffrianne Young, co director of the project. “There was a generosity of ideas between the three of us, how together we could bring to life a world of music engaging the old and new Primavera paintings. 

“Haimovitz and von Heyl are incredibly curious about the world beyond their studios,” he continued. “During our initial conversation together, I observed firsthand how true artists and performers constantly notice and intentionally incorporate old and new cultural references and sources of inspiration in their work.”

You can listen to the album here.