First, I'd like to thank the many of you who've been coming to my concerts, it's been a great privilege for me to have had so many opportunities to perform this past year, both solo and with MaD Fusion. There have been many exciting recent developments in my career this past year I'd like to share with you, as well as some cool new things for the coming year. First, my solo Gershwin CD,
Matt Herskowitz Plays Gershwin, has been nominated for a Prix Opus (Québec) for Best CD in the category of Classical, Romantic, Post Romantic and Impressionist – not a bad description of the disc, actually. And for a beautiful holiday surprise, my “other” Christmas CD – with Barry Manilow, called
In The Swing Of Christmas, is nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop album! And to top it off, my Gershwin CD made the list of the top 10 jazz CDs in La Presse - it's really nice to have one CD recognized in both the classical and jazz categories! So those are my Christmas gifts for this year, I don't need any more until next year:)
It's also been a great year for new compositions; I wrote and performed a new piano concerto for jazz trio and chamber orchestra called
Undertow. It was commissioned by Absolute Ensemble for their show
Reinventions, which features new original compositions based on Bach Inventions. Mine is based on the 3-part Invention no. 9 in F minor, for all the curious Bach enthusiasts out there.The premier was at the Bremen International Musikfest in Bremen, Germany this past September, and I'm happy to say it was a big hit. I'm currently writing a new piece, commissioned by the Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York, for a Jewish-themed concert in New York City featuring my trio MaD Fusion with violinist Alexandre Da Costa and cellist Denise Djokic. The piece is a 'quintet for two trios'; the jazz trio of piano, bass and drums, and the classical trio of piano, violin and cello. The concert will take place at Victor Borge Hall on April 29, 2009. I've also been commissioned again by Absolute Ensemble to write a concerto for Bandaneon for their show Absolute Tango, featuring renowned Dutch bandoneon soloist Carel Kraayenhof. This will be my first concerto for bandaneon! The premier of this concert will be at the Bremen Musikfest in the fall of 2009. I will also be performing my solo Gershwin program at the Bremen Musikfest on August 23, 2009. This will be the European debut of this show, so I'm very excited about that.
And finally, new albums are in the works. I plan on releasing a live CD of my Montreal jazz trio, with Mathieu Désy on bass and Kevin Warren on drums, from our performances at Upstairs Jazz Club every Wednesday and Thursday in March 2009. There are also two MaD Fusion album projects to be recorded in 2009 as well: our
MaD Gershwin program, which we performed this past summer at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, among others, and a new original album. And finally, I'm putting together a new project called
From Bach to Brubeck, which will feature original compositions and arrangements based on themes of Bach and Dave Brubeck by myself and cutting-edge New York composer Gene Pritsker, performed by MaD Fusion and string quartet. So we're keeping busy! I've just received a CD from our performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and it sounds pretty darn good, so I'll put up a few tracks on my websites:
www.mattherskowitz.com and www.madfusionmusic.com.
Thanks again to all of you who've been so supportive in my career, and a special thanks to all at Disques Tout Crin, Fusion 3 and Productions Micheline Sarrazin for all their hard work in helping to spread the music.
Happy Holidays, and all best wishes for the new year!
-matt