Haimovitz joins Elgin Symphony this weekend

In this weekend's first concerts following the holidays, the Elgin Symphony Orchestra is offering a unique program of music - and a unique guest artist as well.

The guest artist is cellist Matt Haimovitz, who made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut at age 17 with conductor James Levine in 1988 at Ravinia (concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns and Edouard Lalo). Deutsche Grammophon immediately followed up with a CD celebrating the event. It was also Haimovitz's recording debut, launching a successful 10-year run with the DG label.

In the past 20 years, Haimovitz's career has taken an interesting turn. Today, he has earned a reputation as one of the world's leading classical "buskers," artists playing recitals in public places (train stations are popular) with a goal of introducing great music to people who likely have never visited a concert hall. Haimovitz polished classical "street music" to a higher degree with his acclaimed "Listening-Room Tour" featuring performances of the six Bach solo cello suites in coffeehouses and other unique locales.

Of course, Haimovitz still appears on the regular concert circuit, and he's forged a career as an educator. He and his wife, the composer Luna Pearl Woolf, live in Montreal where Hamovitz is professor of cello at McGill University.

Audiences at the ESO's third of this season's Classic Series concerts are hearing him as soloist in Samuel Barber's mid-1940s Cello Concerto, with guest conductor Andrew Grams. This concerto, one a string of important commissions sponsored by Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Serge Koussevitsky, didn't at first catch on with the public to the extent of Barber's Violin Concerto.

But later generations of cellists have taken hold of the piece, and it has finally found a solid place in the repertoire. In Friday's matinee performance at Hemmens Theatre, Haimovitz's technical mastery of his instrument was clearly evident in the two outer movements with their complex rhythmic components. The central andante is signature Barber, with a nostalgic, longingly beautiful main theme that Haimovitz played from the heart.

Friday's concert opened with "The Moldau," the most popular of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana's cycle of six symphonic poems titled "My Fatherland," which was given the full Technicolor treatment by Grams and the orchestra. Following intermission, Grams led a disciplined, taut performance of Brahms' Symphony No. 2, after which the conductor accorded members of the ESO's woodwind and brass sections well-earned solo bows.

Elgin Symphony Orchestra

What: Andrew Grams conducts music by Samuel Barber, Johannes Brahms and Bedrich Smetana

Guest soloist: Cellist Matt Haimovitz

Where: Hemmens Theatre, 45 Symphony Way, Elgin

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 3:30 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $25-$63. Call (847) 888-4000, or visit elginsymphony.org.