Giya Kancheli (original) (raw)

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Georgian composer (1935–2019)

Gia KancheliPAU
Kancheli in March 2010Kancheli in March 2010
Background information
Born (1935-08-10)10 August 1935Tiflis, Georgian SSR, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR
Died 2 October 2019(2019-10-02) (aged 84)Tbilisi
Genres Soundtrack, classical music
Occupation Composer
Instrument(s) Piano, keyboard, synthesizer
Years active 1961–2019
Signature

Musical artist

Gia Kancheli (Georgian: გია ყანჩელი; 10 August 1935 – 2 October 2019)[1] was a Georgian composer.[2] He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and resided in Belgium in later life.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kancheli lived first in Berlin, and from 1995 in Antwerp, where he became composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic.[3] He died in Tbilisi at age 84.

In his symphonies, Kancheli's musical language typically consists of slow scraps of minor-mode melody against long, subdued, anguished string discords. Rodion Shchedrin called Kancheli "an ascetic with the temperament of a maximalist; a restrained Vesuvius".[4]

Kancheli wrote seven symphonies, and what he termed a liturgy for viola and orchestra, Mourned by the Wind. the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov gave the American premiere of his Fourth Symphony in 1978, not long before the cultural freeze in the United States against Soviet culture. Glasnost allowed Kancheli to regain exposure, and he began to receive frequent commissions, as well as performances in Europe and North America.[5]

Championed internationally by Lera Auerbach, Dennis Russell Davies, Jansug Kakhidze, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Kronos Quartet, Kancheli saw world premieres of his works in Seattle, as well as with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. He continued to receive regular commissions. Recordings of his works are regularly released, notably on the ECM label.[6]

His work Styx is for solo viola, chorus and orchestra. It is a farewell to his friends Avet Terterian and Alfred Schnittke, whose names the chorus sings during the piece.[7]

For two decades, Kancheli was the music director of the Rustaveli Theatre in Tbilisi. He composed an opera, Music for the Living, in collaboration with Rustaveli director Robert Sturua, and in 1999, the opera was restaged for the Deutsches National Theater in Weimar.[8]

He wrote music for films such as Georgiy Daneliya's science fiction film Kin-dza-dza! (1986) and its 2013 animated remake.[9]

  1. ^ n.a. (28 October 2019). "Giya Kancheli obituary". The Times (London). Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  2. ^ Peter Rollberg (2009). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. US: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 318–319. ISBN 978-0-8108-6072-8.
  3. ^ "Giya Kancheli turns 75 on 10 August". Sikorski. August 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
  4. ^ Ainslie, Sarah. "Giya Kancheli". schirmer.com, 2006. Retrieved on 31 January 2007.
  5. ^ "Giya Kancheli". www.wisemusicclassical.com. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  6. ^ Records, E. C. M. "ECM Records". ECM Records. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
  7. ^ Tuttle, Raymond. "Yuri Bashmet Plays", classical.net; retrieved 2 April 2010.
  8. ^ "Ghia Kancheli - Ascetic with Energy of Maximalist", davisvenot.ge; retrieved 2 April 2010.
  9. ^ Rickards, Guy (7 October 2019). "Giya Kancheli obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 August 2020.