 |
LAZAROF, HENRI BIOGRAPHY(b 1932 )
Henri Lazarof is a true polymath with significant
parallels to such eminent predecessors as Leonard
Bernstein and Camille Saint-Sans, both of whose
breadth of knowledge in disparate fields embraced and
exceeded their primary vocation as composers.
Bernsteins talents as a teacher are well known because
of his televised broadcasts to children. Saint-Sans
lectured on astronomy. Henri Lazarof, in addition to
being a frequently performed composer with
commissions from the Seattle Symphony, Berlin
Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta, has taught
composition as well as French language and literature.
Lazarof was born in Sofia, Bulgaria on 12th April,
1932, and began his musical studies at the age of six.
He graduated from the Sofia Academy in 1948 and
studied at the New Jerusalem Academy of Music from
1949 to 1952 and with Goffredo Petrassi at the
Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome from 1955 to
1957. In 1957 he moved to the United States and
studied at Brandeis University on a full scholarship
with Arthur Berger and Harold Shapero. He received
his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1959. While a student
at Brandeis, his considerable skill in composition was
put to immediate use, bringing him early recognition. In
1958, his String Quartet won first prize from Bostons
Brookline Public Library, and his Cantata received a
commission from Brandeis University for its 1959 Arts
Festival.
In 1959 Lazarof moved to California, where he still
lives, and took a position as teacher of French language
and literature at UCLA. Three years later he joined the
Universitys Music Department and eventually rose to
the rank of Emeritus Professor. In 1963 he organized
the Festival of Contemporary Music, which featured
music and lectures by Luciano Berio, Karlheinz
Stockhausen and Leonard Stein. His international
reputation received a boost in 1966 when he was
awarded the first International Prize of Milan for
Structures Sonores. In 1970-71, he completed seven
major works while serving as artist in residence for the
West German government in West Berlin. With the
completion of his residency in Berlin, Lazarof returned
in 1973 to UCLA, where he was named Artistic
Director of its Contemporary Music Festival that year.
Since that time works flowed from this diligent, hardworking
composer who is always honing his
considerable craft.
For many years Lazarof had been quite taken with
the artwork of the great Russian painter, Wassily
Kandinsky, the seminal figure in the evolution of
abstract art. After an initially negative reaction to the
non-representational quality of French impressionist
painters at an exhibition in 1895, Kandinsky came far to
exceed Monet and his colleagues in transcending the
boundaries of realism. The child of musical parents,
Kandinsky learned the piano and cello while young and
had a profound feel for music. He once said that colour
is the keyboard, the eyes the harmonies, the soul the
piano with many strings. Like Scriabin, he posited a
strong connection between colour and musical
harmony, associating tone with timbre, hue with pitch,
and so forth. He claimed to see colour when he heard
music.
Kandinskys beautifully crafted abstract paintings
manifest a rhythmic vibrancy that reflects his sense of a
musical-visual nexus. Perhaps it is that musical quality of
his art that reinforced Lazarofs connection to
Kandinskys works. A spur to the composers decision to
translate his resonance to the artist came from pianist
Alexis Weissenberg, who encouraged Lazarof to
compose a large orchestral work, a kind of fresco.
With the support of Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle
Symphony, which commissioned Tableaux, Lazarof
travelled to Paris, Munich and New York City, where he
viewed hundreds of Kandinskys painting. The resultant
orchestral score is a bold, multi-hued tapestry of stunning
instrumental colours, with textures ranging from the
spare and intimate to the richly layered and voluminous.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tell a Friend |
Digg It |
Del.icio.us. |
FURL |
StumbleUpon
