Giya Kancheli

Gia Kancheli (Georgian: გია ყანჩელი; 10 August 1935 – 2 October 2019) was a Georgian composer. 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. 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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Music for the living, opera in two acts (1982–1984)

Symphony No. 4 "To the Memory of Michelangelo" (1974)

Symphony No. 5 "To the Memory of My Parents" (1977)

Mourned by the Wind (Vom Winde beweint), liturgy for viola (or cello) and orchestra (1989)

Morning Prayers for chamber orchestra and tape (1990)

Abii ne viderem ("I turned away so as not to see") for alto flute / viola, piano and string orchestra (1992–1994)

Night Prayers for string quartet (1992–1995)

Caris Mere (After the wind) for soprano and viola (1994)

Magnum Ignotum for wind ensemble and tape (1994)

Instead of a Tango for violin, bandoneon, piano and double bass (1996)

Time... and Again for violin and piano (1996)

Light Sorrow, music for orchestra, boys' choir and two boy sopranos (for the 40th anniversary of the victory over fascism) (1984)

Midday Prayers for soprano, clarinet and chamber orchestra (1990)

Evening Prayers, for eight alto voices and chamber orchestra (1991)

Psalm 23, for soprano and chamber orchestra (1993)

Lament, concerto for violin, soprano and orchestra (1994)