Christos Hatzis was born in 1953 in Volos, Greece. In 1982 he completed his PhD in composition at SUNY Buffalo and moved to Canada. At first he worked as a nightclub musician with Greek bands and composed when time permitted. In 1995 be became an associate professor, and in 2003 a full professor, in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. His work is inspired by the idea of ‘cultural convergence,’ or the cross-fertilization that occurs when different musical cultures come into contact. He has written a series of works inspired by Inuit throat singing; some of these have been recorded on a recent 2-CD set devoted to works by Hatzis (CBC Records MVCD 1156-2, 2002).

The year-long celebrations of Hatzis’s 50th birthday included a concert in Walter Hall, University of Toronto, on March 21st, the day of his birthday. The concert ended with four movements from his stunning work-in-progress, Constantinople. Begun in 1999 as a commissioned work for the Gryphon Trio, the work is evolving into a 90-minute multimedia music theatre piece for soprano, alto, piano trio, and multi-channel audio playback. The singers must be vocally versatile, as the work calls for a variety of Western and Middle Eastern singing styles. Constantinople will be further developed in workshops at the Banff Centre this year and next, with performances at Banff, London, and the Olympic Festival at Athens planned for 2004. It is certain to be a landmark in Canadian music theatre.

Hatzis’s most recent choral work, Light (Arctic Dreams 2), is to be premiered on July 2nd in St. John’s by four children’s choirs from around the world as part of Songbridge. Songbridge is a UNESCO project and is part of Festival 500 Sharing the Voices, an international choral festival held in Newfoundland.

Performer, composer and educator Phil Nimmons is 80 on 3 June 2003. The International Association for Jazz Educators recently named him to its Jazz Education Hall of Fame, and in October 2002 he was presented with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for lifetime artistic achievement. He has taught at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music for 30 years. At a concert on 8 February 2003 by the U of T Wind Ensemble and Concert Band he received a Distinguished Service Award from the Music Education Division of the U of T Faculty of Music. He was also the featured soloist in a performance of Eric Whitacre's Ghost Train Triptych, and his work Skyscape (Sleeping Beauty and the Lions) was performed. The creation of the Noreen and Phil Nimmons Fund to support guest lecturers to enrich Music Education programme offerings was announced at this concert, to honour Phil and his late wife. Another celebration of Nimmons took place on 9 April 2003 when he was honoured at a concert by the U of T 10 O’clock Jazz Orchestra.

John Weinzweig’s 90th birthday (11 March 2003) was celebrated in Toronto by a party at the Canadian Music Centre, two concerts, and a number of articles.¹ The University of Toronto Contemporary Music Ensemble, under the direction of Gary Kulesha, presented ‘John Weinzweig: A Celebration’ on 19 March 2003 in the university’s Walter Hall. The concert, performed for the most part by student musicians, included works written between 1942 and 1975. Highlights included a wonderful performance by soprano Kristin Mueller, accompanied by Kulesha, of Private Collection (1975) and an equally engaging performance of Divertimento No. 4 for Clarinet and Strings by soloist Peter Stoll.

New Music Concerts presented ‘Pioneers! O Pioneers!’ at the Glenn Gould Studio on 23 March. The concert included old and new works by Weinzweig and two of his most illustrious pupils, Harry Freedman and John Beckwith. Freedman’s Phoenix for string quartet, Beckwith’s A New Pibroch for Highland pipes, strings, and percussion, and Weinzweig’s Prologue to a Tango for mezzo-soprano and four violins were the three new works on the programme, each one a fine addition to the composer’s catalogue. The superb soloists were piper Michael Grey and mezzo-soprano Jean Stilwell. A composite portrait of the three composers by Charles Pachter was unveiled before the concert began.

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