Happy New Year everyone. May the year 2008 bring us all love, peace, happiness and creativity. Let it be remembered as the year that we all contributed so that our collective destiny on this planet takes a turn for the better. From fighting against continuing global warming and poverty to paying attention to the little things that may make a difference to one of our fellow human beings, this should be the year that we commit to improving our shared habitat and work towards becoming our Brother's Keeper.

I hope you all had some wonderful downtime during the holidays. Mine was a mixture of work and fun. I spent ten days in December in St. John's, Newfoundland working on a new work and staying in a wonderful estate by the Atlantic Ocean, and upon my return I became quite domestic spending some quality time with my wife Bev and, for a few days, my daughter Maria who visited us twice with her friends for skiing a the Lakeridge Ski resort just up the road from where we live. We celebrated Christmas day in our home outside of Uxbridge, Ontario, with 24 guests (family, friends and a dog) and we had a great time, although I can't remember the last time I had to wash so many kitchen utensils. The grounds around our home are always majestic, but particularly around Christmas they were almost as if out of a Christmas card: snow everywhere, the fireplace in full swing day and night, dear and rabbits roaming nearby in full sight.

When we were not having guests, I worked very hard on a number of new commissions that have imminent deadlines. I completed a work called WATER for four children's choirs, Celtic fiddle, Irish bouzouki and audience, commissioned by the Shallaway Choir of Newfoundland and Labrador for Songbridge 2008, an UNESCO project, which will take place next July in Copenhagen. WATER will be performed by Shallaway and NF musicians, and choirs from China, Denmark, and Hungary. On Boxing Day, I started work on FROM THE SONG OF SONGS for Arabic singer, tenor, Baroque chamber orchestra and choir commissioned by the renowned Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir for a concert in March, part of a peace festival in Toronto. Based on texts from Solomon's Song of Songs, the work will feature Arabic vocalist Maryem Hassan-Tollar with the Tafelmusik Orchestra and Choir. After I finish this three-movement work, I will embark immediately on a setting of PSALM 91 for the combined Elmer Iseler Singers and the Vancouver Chamber Choir, two of Canada's pre-eminent choirs also for a concert in March, also in Toronto. So all this composing plus the school work should keep me out of trouble for a while. It felt good to be able to devote my entire time to composing for a change.

There are some major performances coming up soon that I would like to alert you to. Only the larger works are listed here. For more details go to www.hatzis.com and click on What's New on the Main Page or click HERE. Follow the links below for more information on the specific works and performance venues:

January 11, 12: Constantinople in Calgary
January 15: European Premiere of  Light from the Cross in Athens
January 17: Constantinople in Whitehorse
January 19: Telluric Dances in Vancouver Island
 

 

January 2008
Full-production series of performances of Constantinople in
Calgary and Whitehorse, Canada.
featuring the Juno Award-winning Gryphon Trio
and vocalists Maryem Tollar and Patricia O'Callaghan.
A Gryphon Trio production.

CONSTANTINOPLE at
2008 High Performance Rodeo, Calgary, Alberta
January 11, 12 2008

CONSTANTINOPLE at the
Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, Yukon
January 17, 2008

 

"one of the most talked about
contemporary classical compositions
of the decade"
Li Robbins, The Globe & Mail

 

So much new music theatre fails to do anything innovative with such a wonderfully plastic medium
that when a work comes along which looks as if it might be a genuinely original synthesis of art forms
it demands close attention....Indeed, many who have seen the piece appear to have been
bowled over by its sheer richness and unclassifiable theatricality.
THE GUARDIAN (UK), March 17, 2007

The Gryphon Trio will be bringing Christos Hatzis' extraordinary work Constantinople to the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio
 later this month, but first they staged the piece at Montreal's En Lumière festival, where I witnessed how
 its computerized lighting and video effects, eruptions of quadraphonic surround-sound
and polyglot mix of musical styles could be moulded into a persuasive 90-minute whole....
The joy of Constantinople is the way Hatzis has assembled it from simple but powerful musical themes,
which develop and sprout variations and overtones as the piece progresses.
However complex the staging may be, the music is always eloquent and emotionally direct
Adam Sweeting, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK), March 8 2007

Like Chinatown (according to the Polanski movie) Christos Hatzis' Constantinople is a state of mind....
He's collaborated with live performers, projections and recorded voices to produce a dream-like meld of east and west,
past and present, expected clishés turned slightly askew, freshly constituted to produce the unexpected...
The result is a work that incorporates different musical idioms while retaining a basic unity....
linked by Hatzis' own vein of often introverted melancholy.
Martin Hoyle, TIME OUT London (UK) March 20 2007

www.classicalsource.com
This is truly a work of art and a creation – a combination of two ravishing singers,
possibly the most dynamic of all piano trios extant, the staging – together with inspired costumes, artefacts and images.
And then, the magical aural thread of Christos Hatzis’s music – all life was in its varied styles,
including the recorded sound and electronic interventions. This eminently accessible music
deserves frequent hearings – so as to ensure one does not forget its radiance
nor lose memory of its delicately intricate subtlety, so lightly purveyed.
Kenneth Carter, www.classicalsource.com (UK)
 

Read the recent essay

Watch a Constantinople promotional video on

 

 

 

January 15
Light from the Cross
a 50-minute-long cantata
based on the chants of the Holy Week
of the Armenian Apostolic Church
(with surtitles in Greek)

Ani Maldjian, soprano

The Camerata Orchestra of Athens
The ERT (Greek National Radio & Television) Choir

Alexandre Myrat, conductor

Friends of Music Hall

Athens Concert Hall

Athens, Greece

 

 

 

 

 

January 19, 7:30 PM.
Telluric Dances
Pippa Williams, oboe; The Vancouver Island Symphony,
under the direction of Carlo Palleschi.
Port Theatre; Nanaimo, Vancouver Island,
British Columbia

"Not since John Corigliano's Oboe Concerto has there been such a work,
and truth to tell, I think that Hatzis' surpasses it".
Raymond Tuttle CLASSICAL NET (USA)