Israeli-born cellist Matt moved to Palo Alto, CA, with his engineer father and mother who was a pianist in 1975. He began studying the cello with Irene Sharp (who had studied with Margaret Rowell) and shortly after that became a student of Gabor Rejto, who had studied with Pablo Casals.

Haimovitz made his debut in 1984, at the age of 13, as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. The same year, he substituted for his teacher, Leonard Rose, at Carnegie Hall. Rose called him “probably the greatest talent I have ever taught ” At 17 he made his first recording with James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for Deutsche Grammophon. Haimovitz has since gone on to perform on the world’s most esteemed stages, with such orchestras and conductors as the Berlin Philharmonic with Levine, the New York Philharmonic with Mehta, the English Chamber Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim, the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin and he Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano. Haimovitz made his Carnegie Hall debut when he substituted for his teacher, the legendary Leonard Rose, in Schubert’s String Quintet in C, alongside Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zukerman and Mstislav Rostropovich.

His recent projects include Figment, an album and listening room tour of (mostly) solocello music, exploring the musical riches and diversity of his two home countries, the US and Canada, and AKOKA, (tour and live recording) reframing Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with works by klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer and electronic and beats artist Socalled, frequent performances with his McGill colleagues violinist Jonathan Crow and violist Douglas McNabney, Mark O’Connor’s string quartets with O’Connor, Ida Kavafian, and Paul Neubauer, chamber music with Leon Fleisher, Menahem Pressler, Michael Tree, touring with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra, as well as a live recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto with Gregory Nowak and the Orchestre de Bretagne, Ligeti’s Cello Concerto with Denys Bouliane and the Contemporary Music Ensemble of McGill University and a series of concerto commissions with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony.

In 2006, Haimovitz received the Concert Music Award from ASCAP for his advocacy of living composers and in 2004, the American Music Center awarded him the Trailblazer Award, for his far-reaching contributions to American music. Haimovitz has also been honored with the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1986), the Grand Prix du Disque (1991), the Diapason d’Or (1991) and he is the first cellist ever to receive the prestigious Premio Internazionale “Accademia Musicale Chigiana” (1999). Haimovitz studied at the Collegiate School in New York and at the Juilliard School, in the final class of Leonard Rose, after which he continued his cello studies with Ronald Leonard and Yo-Yo Ma. In 1996, he received a B.A. magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard University. Haimovitz plays a 1710 Venetian cello made by Matteo Goffriller.