NEWSLETTER #28

Hello everyone,

The past three weeks have been quite peaceful and creative and now I am getting all set again for some new performances and projects including the US premiere of Constantinople on June 10 and 11 at the Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, CT (more on that further below) and the US premiere of my Winter Solstice: Concerto for French Horn and String Orchestra on June 8 at the International French Horn Symposium in Alabama. Before I get started, however, I would like to correct (and apologize for) an oversight in my previous newsletter. In reference to my Sepulcher of Life, I mentioned a list of music directors who have embraced this work and gave it six performance during the first year of its life. Conspicuously absent from this list was the name of Prof. Leonard Ratzlaff, the music director of the Richard Eaton Singers, who are among the original four commissioning organizations for this work and took part in the first two performances in Vancouver and Edmonton. Because of the sheer volume of information in these newsletters, there are always inaccuracies and omissions, but this one was inexcusable. My apologies, Len.
May events:

Telluric Dances
The premiere of Telluric Dances for oboe and orchestra by Suzanne Lemieux and the Symphony Nova Scotia was an event that I am not likely to forget for a long time to come. The rapport with the soloist, the musicians of the orchestra and last but not least Maestro Berhard Gueller was simply extraordinary! The audience sensed this "love-in" and their reaction was instantaneous. The review the following day captured the excitement:

If you had walked by the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium at about 9 p.m. Tuesday night, you might have thought from the roar of the audience that a rock concert was on. But it was Symphony Nova Scotia - the finale of the premiere of Telluric Dances for Oboe and Orchestra by Christos Hatzis, written for and played by principal oboe Suzanne Lemieux. With that last note the packed audience jumped up and started yelling and cheering. It went on for five minutes. Each time Lemieux returned to the stage to take a bow, the roar surged again, for composer Hatzis, conductor Bernhard Gueller and the astonished members of the orchestra...the Hatzis concerto...is full of technical innovation and surprise, panning the sound in the air from right to left and 180 degrees into the orchestra and back; there are multiphonic screeches, bent tones, an array of ornaments and roulades. Lemieux played elegantly but not overly so, preserving character, suggesting both a folk oboe and a concert soprano. With an instinct for musical proportions that would have made Hatzis a great architect and one of the finest ears in music for orchestral colour, allied to his astonishing musical imagination, he constructed a concerto full of rhythmic rococo, lively in the interplay of tones, and clear and easy to follow despite its complexity. Stephen Pedersen, THE CHRONICLE HERALD (Halifax, Canada) May 5, 2005.
The following day we did a recording of Telluric Dances for an upcoming CD with this new work and Pyrrichean Dances, which SNS performed and recorded a few weeks earlier (see Newsletter #27). Like in the previous instance, the recording of Telluric Dances by a team headed by producer Jeff Reilly was extraordinary. I am so much looking forward to working with Jeff and Peter Cook on the postproduction phase of this CD. It should be in the record stores some time next fall. The (working) title of the CD is Dances of Life and Death.
 
 
Awakening
Speaking of CDs, the Awakening CD of my two string quartets brilliantly performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet has been in circulation on EMI Classics in Canada since April, but had its US launch on Angel/EMI earlier this month and it is already in record stores in the UK and other parts of the world. You should not have any trouble finding it. The US release was followed by the following review in the San Francisco Chronicle:
Greek-born Canadian composer Christos Hatzis seems to be fairly prominent in his home country, but his music has not been heard much here. On the evidence of this engaging new disc, Hatzis' voice is muscular, probing, a little sentimental and all-embracing—there's very little in the musical landscape that he doesn't enfold into his music. In the String Quartet No. 1 (The Awakening), Hatzis joins rich string harmonies with a recorded tape of Inuit throat singers and locomotive engines; the String Quartet No. 2 (The Gathering), goes even further afield to encompass everything from Philip Glass to Balkan dance music. The result would probably sound hopelessly diffuse if not for the steely assurance with which Hatzis weaves together the disparate threads, and if not for the lush, forthright playing of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, which lends the music an irresistible sonic depth. Joshua Kosman, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, May 22, 2005 (USA).
In addition to the circulation of the CD, the St. Lawrence String Quartet is giving a number of performance of the works on the CD around the world, with two important ones coming up in November at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
 
  
Upcoming events:
 
Constantinople
The much anticipated American premiere of Constantinople is just around the corner. Below is a recent Gryphon Trio recent release with pertinent information for traveling to the venue.
 
 
Christos Hatzis'
Constantinople 
U.S. Premiere June 10th, 2005 
International Festival of Arts & Ideas
New Haven, CT 
(New Haven is located 1.5 hours northeast of New York City
and 2 hours southwest of Boston)
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&address=&city=New+Haven&state=CT&zipcode=
 
 
 After sold-out runs in both Banff and Toronto the multimedia 'music-as-theatre' piece Constantinople will open the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut on June 10th, 2005. Composed by Canadian composer Christos Hatzis,  Constantinople was commissioned and is performed by Canada's celebrated Gryphon Trio and extraordinary singers Maryem Hassan Tollar and Patricia O'Callaghan.
 
***Tickets on sale May 17th, 20 0 5*** 
 Please call 1-888-278-4332  or visit http://www.artidea.org/index.cgi/125 

For those members of the mailing list who live in the New York City area, this is the closest venue to New York that Constantinople will be presented in the near future, so you may want to make the trip to New Haven to experience this multimedia, multi-genre work. There are other exciting news about Constantinople which have not yet been confirmed for inclusion in this newsletter, so stay in tune.
 
 
Winter Solstice: Concerto for French Horn and String Orchestra
Less than a year since its world premiere in Yellowknife, NWT by celebrated French horn virtuoso Jamie Sommerville (Principal Horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and the CBC Radio Orchestra under Mario Bernardi, the US premiere of Winter Solstice will take place on June 8 with Jamie again as soloist and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Thompson, as part of the 37th International Horn Society Summer Symposium. The concert will take place at the School of Music, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, Alabama. For more information, click HERE. Winter Solstice is an extremely difficult work for the French horn and a great vehicle for Jamie to showcase his amazing virtuosity in the presence of an international who's who list of colleagues from around the world.
 
Current and Upcoming projects:
 
Through a Glass Darkly
During the past couple of weeks I concentrated on composing my first work ever for solo piano, called Through a Glass Darkly for the amazing young Korean-Canadian pianist Jennifer Lim. The title of this technically demanding work is borrowed from St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians (Corinthians 13:12). If you are interested in more information about this, you can go to the program notes posted at www.hatzis.com by clicking HERE.
 
The next projects in a rather long series of commitments are:
 
Extreme Unction: a work for the Halifax-based trio  Sanctuary (Peter Togni, organ; Jeff Reilly, bass clarinet and Christoph Both, cello) that is now making an international splash with their new CD The Heart Has its Reasons released on Warner Classics.
 
 Apsinthos/Chrenobyl. A new work for bass-baritone (Pavlo Hunka), piano trio (The Gryphon Trio), and chamber choir (The Elmer Iseler Singers). Texts in Ukrainian from the Book of Revelation. To premiere at Roy Thompson Hall in the spring of 2006 in a concert commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
 
Also a series of world-music pieces for Maryem Tollar and her band, to premiere in 2006, continuing work on my multi-genre, multimedia opera Antigone, and a new orchestral work: a joint commission by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Scotia Festival of Music to premiere in 2007, among other things.

Other upcoming performances
Since this may be the last newsletter before September, here's a list of performances during the summer that have been so far confirmed. There will be a number of other ones that I am informed about the last minute so check at www.hatzis.com (under What's New) for updates, corrections, additions, cancellations, etc.

June 8, 7:15 PM. US premiere of Winter Solstice: Concerto for French Horn and String Orchestra. Jamie Sommerville, French horn; The Alabama Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Thompson. Part of the 37th International Horn Society Summer Symposium. School of Music, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, Alabama. For more information, click HERE.

June 10 & 11, 8:00 PM. CONSTANTINOPLE. US premiere The Gryphon Trio (Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; Roman Borys, cello; Jamie Parker, piano); Patricia O' Callaghan, soprano; Maryem Tollar, alto; Marie-Josée Chartier, director/choreographer; John Murrell OC, AOE, scripting consultant; Jacques Collin, visual projection production and design; Lionel Arnould, visual projection concept development, production, and design; Bernard White, set and lighting design; Heather MacCrimmon, costume design; Anthony Crea, sound design/ engineer; Caroline Hollway, production manager. International Festival of Arts and Ideas. New Haven, CT.

June 24, 8:00 PM. Old Photographs. Jonathan Crow, violin; Paul Marleyn, violoncello; Hae-sun Paik, piano. Agassiz Summer Chamber Music Festival. Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall, University of Winnipeg; Winnipeg, MB.

July 10, 3:30 PM. The Fountain of Bethesda and Wine turning Into Water from Four Rituals for Percussion Quintet, Chorus and Audience. NEXUS percussion group (Bob Becker, Bill Cahn, Robin Engelman, Russell Hartenberger, Gary Kvistad); Baie des Chaleurs International Chamber Music Festival. Dalhousie, NB.

July 11, 8:00 PM. Fertility Rites. Beverley Johnston, marimba. Zeltsman Marimba Festival. Harper Hall, Music-Drama Center, Lawrence University 420 East College Avenue, Appleton, WI.

July 24. Melisma. Jean-Guy Boisvert, clarinet. ClarinetFest 2005; Part of the International Clarinet Association Annual Congress. Tama, Tokyo, Japan. For more information, click HERE

July 24, 7:30 PM. String Quartet No. 2 (The Gathering). St. Lawrence String Quartet (Geoff Nuttall, violin; Barry Shiffman, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola; Christopher Costanza, cello). Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival; Louis C. Jones Center; The Farmer's Museum; Lake Rd; Cooperstown, NY. For more information, click HERE.

August 1, noon. String Quartet No. 2 (The Gathering). St. Lawrence String Quartet (Geoff Nuttall, violin; Barry Shiffman, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola; Christopher Costanza, cello). Ottawa International Music Festival. Venue and exact concert time TBA. Ottawa, ON. For more information, click HERE.

August 19, 8:00 PM. Old Photographs. Oleg Pokhanovski, violin; Paul Marleyn, cello; Alexander Tselyakov, piano. Pender Harbour Chamber Music Festival; Pender Harbour, BC.

  As always, you can go to www.hatzis.com for last minute changes, (additions and, sometimes, cancellations of events). Due to the amount of information on the site, it is not always possible to have as accurate information as I would like. Some members of the list often email me with suggestions, corrections, etc. All correspondence is very much appreciated. Thank you. Best wishes,
Christos 
 

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