Christos Hatzis | en

Hatzis, Christos (Panagiotou). Composer, teacher, b Volos, Greece, 21 Mar 1953, naturalized Canadian 1985; B MUS (Eastman School of Music) 1976, M MUS (Eastman School of Music) 1977, PH D (State University of New York at Buffalo) 1982.

Hatzis's father was a railway engineer in Greece. The sounds of trains are among the composer's earliest sound memories and have on occasion been featured in his compositions (e.g. his String Quartet No. 1). As a child, Hatzis sang the drone line in a Greek Orthodox church; this experience is reflected both in his frequent use of drones, and in the influence of the music and texts of the Byzantine Church in many of his compositions. His musical education began at the Volos branch of the Hellenic Conservatory in 1962; he studied accordion and harmony with Charalambos Kehaides, and completed degrees in theory in 1973 and instrumentation in 1974. He then studied composition at the Eastman School of Music 1974-77. His teachers there included Joseph Schwantner and Warren Benson during his undergraduate years, and Samuel Adler and Russell Peck at the master's level.

Hatzis began doctoral studies in composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1977. Lejaren Hiller was his supervisor; he also studied with Morton Feldman and Wlodimierz Kotonski. The Law of One was his doctoral thesis composition. Upon graduating in 1982 he settled in Toronto, where he worked for many years as a nightclub musician with Greek bands and as a free-lance composer and teacher. In 1995 he became an associate professor of composition in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. In 2003 he was promoted to full professor. .