The Bach Barfly

Matt Haimovvitz could be making his career in the great concert halls of the world, playing his cello in front of the top orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. Instead, he’s touring America, hauling his distinctly classical instrument into profoundly unclassical bars, pizza parlors, and nightclubs, and subjecting the patrons to some solo Bach. Why bother? Call it a musical answer to the question of why everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it: in an era when every classical musician talks about the necessity of breeding new audiences for the old music, Haimovitz is actually making a stab at doing it.