Giya Alexandrovich Kancheli (Georgian: გია ალექსანდროვიჩი ყანჩელი; (10 August 1935 – 2 October 2019) was a Georgian composer. He was born in Tbilisi, Transcaucasian SFSR, Soviet Union, but resided in Belgium.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kancheli lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and from 1995 in Antwerp, where he became composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic. He died in his home city of Tbilisi, aged 84.

Work

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

Kancheli has written seven symphonies, and what he terms a liturgy for viola and orchestra, called Mourned by the Wind. His Fourth Symphony received its American premiere, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yuri Temirkanov, in January 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 within 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 has seen world premieres of his works in Seattle, as well as with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. He continues to receive regular commissions. New CDs of his recent works are regularly released, notably on the ECM label.

His work Styx is written for solo viola, chorus and orchestra. It is a farewell to his friends Avet Terterian and Alfred Schnittke, whose names are sung by the choir at certain points.

For two decades, he served as 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 December 1999, the opera was restaged for the Deutsches National Theater in Weimar.

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

Filmography

• 1964 — Children of the sea
• 1965 — Gold (Animated film)
• 1967 — Melancholy romance
• 1968 — Extraordinary Exhibition
• 1968 — Don't Grieve
• 1970 — Competition
• 1970 — Feola (Short)
• 1970 — The Jug (Short)
• 1971 — Neighbour
• 1972 — When almonds blossomed
• 1972 — White stones(Short)
• 1972 — Gladiator (Short)
• 1973 — Record
• 1974 — The Eccentrics (with Jansug Kakhidze)
• 1974 — Captains
• 1974 — Night visit (with Revaz Lagidze)
• 1974 — Magic egg (Animated film)
• 1975 — Caucasian prisoner
• 1975 — Caucasian romance
• 1977 — Stepmother of Samanishvili (with Jansug Kakhidze)
• 1977 — Mimino
• 1977 — Cinema
• 1978 — Some interviews on personal matters
• 1978 — Khanuma
• 1978 — Caucasian Story
• 1979 — Dumas in Caucasia
• 1979 — Ground of ancestors
• 1980 — Earth, This Is Your Son
• 1983 — Blue Mountains
• 1984 — Day Is Longer Than Night
• 1986 — Kin-dza-dza!
• 1987 — King Lear
• 1988 — Life of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
• 1990 — Oh, this horrible TV
• 1990 — Passport
• 1998 — Silver Heads
• 2004 — National Bomb
• 2009 — Happiness
• 2010 — Felicita
• 2010 — After the mountains
• 2012 — Ku! Kin-dza-dza (Animated film)

• 2001 — Giya Kancheli (Documentary)
• 2011 — Giya Kancheli. Life in sounds (Documentary)
• 2012 — Mimino - Secret Soviet movie (Documentary)
• 2012 — Georgiy Daneliya (Documentary)
• 2014 — Goodbye to Language
• 2016 — Voyage of Time

Selected works

• Concerto for Orchestra (1961)
• Woodwind Quintet (1961)
• Largo and Allegro (1963)
• Symphony No. 1 (1967)

• Symphony No. 2 “Songs” (1970)
• Symphony No. 3 (1973)
• Symphony No. 4 "To the Memory of Michelangelo" (1974)
• Symphony No. 5 "To the Memory of My Parents" (1977)
• Symphony No. 6 (1978–1980)
• Symphony No. 7 "Epilogue" (1986)
• Mourned by the Wind (Vom Winde beweint), liturgy for viola (or cello) and orchestra (1989)
• Evening Prayers (Abendgebete) from "Life Without Christmas" (1991)
• Abii ne viderem ("I turned away so as not to see") for alto flute / viola, piano and string orchestra (1992–1994)
• Another Step... (Noch Einen Schritt...) (1992)
• Wingless (1993)
• Magnum Ignotum (1994)
• Trauerfarbenes Land (1994)
• Lament, Music of Mourning in Memory of Luigi Nono (1994)
• ...à la Duduki (1995)
• Simi, “Joyless Thoughts”, for cello and orchestra (1995)
• ...à la Duduki (1995)
• V & V (1995)
• Valse Boston (1996)
• Diplipito (1997)
• Childhood Revisited (Besuch In Der Kindheit) (1998)
• Sio (1998)
• Rokwa (1999)
• And Farewell Goes Out Sighing... (1999)
• A Little Daneliade (2000)
• ...al Niente (2000)
• Ergo (2000)
• Don’t Grieve (2001)
• Fingerprints (2002)
• Lonesome — 2 great Slava from 2 GKs (2002)
• Warzone (2002)
• Twilight (2004)
• Ex Contrario (2006)
• Kapote (2006)
• Silent Prayer (2007)
• Broken Chant (2007)
• Ilori (2010)
• Lingering for large orchestra (2012)
• Nu.Mu.Zu (I don't know, 2015), premiered by the National Orchestra of Belgium

• Morning Prayers for chamber orchestra and tape (1990; 1st work from the 1990–95 four-part cycle A Life without Christmas)
• Midday Prayers for soprano, clarinet and chamber orchestra (1990; 2nd work from the cycle A Life without Christmas)
• Night Prayers for string quartet (1992–1995; 4th work from the cycle A Life without Christmas)
• Caris Mere (After the wind) for soprano and viola (1994)
• Magnum Ignotum for wind ensemble and tape (1994)
• Valse Boston for piano and strings (1996)
• Instead of a Tango for violin, bandoneon, piano and double bass (1996)
• Time... and Again (1996)
• In L'Istesso Tempo for piano quartet (1997)
• Sio for strings, piano and percussion (1998)
• Ninna Nanna for flute and string quartet (2008), commissioned by the National Flute Association
• Chiaroscuro for string quartet (2011)
• Woodwind Quintet for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon (2013)

• Music for the living, opera in two acts (1982–1984)
• Light Sorrow, music for orchestra, boys' choir and two boy sopranos (for the 40th anniversary of the victory over fascism) (1984)
• Evening Prayers, for eight alto voices and chamber orchestra (1991; 3rd work from the 1990–95 four-part cycle A Life without Christmas)
• Psalm 23, for soprano and chamber orchestra (1993)
• Lament, concerto for violin, soprano and orchestra (1994)
• Diplipito, for cello, counter-tenor and chamber orchestra (1997)
• And Farewell Goes Out Sighing... for violin, countertenor and orchestra (1999)
• Styx, for viola, mixed choir and orchestra (1999)
• Little Imber (Kancheli), for solo voice, children's and men's choirs and small ensemble (2003)
• Amao Omi, for SATB choir and saxophone quartet (2005)
• "Dixi", for mixed choir and orchestra (2009)

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