Composer Giya Kancheli is the most important Georgian composer of the past 50 years, and one of the most significant international composers of the past century. He is noted for the strong dramatic structure of his ambitious orchestral works, many of which contain deeply spiritual themes. His richly textured music is imbued with influences from Georgian folk music, American jazz, and twentieth-century Russian composers, with musical phrasings that alternate between sparse and climactic. Along with other Soviet-era composers such as Arvo Part, Erkki-Sven Tuur, Alfred Schnittke, and Sophia Gubaidulina, Kancheli was determined to dramatize the oppression endured by artists under Soviet rule, while finding solace and strength in spirituality.

Kancheli was born on August 10, 1935, in Tbilisi, Georgia. Originally intending to study geology at Tbilisi University, he switched to music instead, attending Tbilisi Conservatory from 1959-63 and receiving a state stipend for his academic accomplishments. In 1962 he won a prize at the All-Union Young Composers Competition, but alienated many potential supporters and angered many Soviet politicos with his acknowledged love of American jazz. Because of this, his Concerto for Orchestra received harsh criticism. He joined the Tbilisi Conservatory faculty in 1970, and was named musical director for the city’s Rustaveli Theatre the following year. His 20-year tenure at Rustaveli infused theatrical elements into many of his subsequent compositions, including his opera Music for the Living, which he wrote with Rustaveli director Robert Sturua.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Georgia was plunged into a violent rebellion against Moscow. The strife convinced Kancheli to emigrate to Germany in 1991 (some sources say 1992). He later relocated to Antwerp, Belgium. After emigrating, his works became known internationally, and he has since been recognized as one of the most important composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

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