Marjan Mozetich

Marjan Mozetich, composer, teacher (b at Gorizia, Italy 7 Jan 1948). Arriving in Canada in 1952, Mozetich took piano and theory lessons in Hamilton with Reginald Bedford. After graduation from the University of Toronto in 1972, he studied in Europe with Luciano Berio. For Nocturne he won the 1977 CAPAC/Sir Ernest MacMillan Award, and also received a prize at the 1978 Gaudeamus Composers International Competition. Not satisfied with the sound of his compositions, Mozetich became interested in American minimalist composition and began to hone a different musical language based on this and the contrapuntal mastery of J.S. Bach. Two works of 1981, Procession for septet and El Dorado for harp and strings, are frequently performed and express his lyrical minimalism with more frequent harmonic changes than the American school. In Fantasia ...sul linguaggio perduto (1981) he wrote a lament for the lost language of musical romanticism with the language of modern tone colours. Mozetich began teaching at QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY in 1991. The following year he composed Lament in the Trampled Garden, the imposed work for the Banff International String Quartet Competition and provided the compulsory violin work for the 1995 Montreal International Music Competition. That same year he was the featured composer of post-modern music at the Ghent Conservatory Music Festival in Belgium. In 1997 he provided music for the film A Balkan Journey: Fragments from the Other Side of the War. Among his most performed and recorded works are the Oboe Concerto (1991), The Passion of Angels (1995) for two harps and orchestra, Postcards from the Sky (1996), the violin concerto Affairs of the Heart (1997), and the Concerto for Bassoon (2003). Several of his compositions have been used as successful ballet scores. Among recordings of his works appearing on the Bis, Chandos, Centrediscs, and CBC Records labels, the CD Affairs of the Heart featuring his compositions was nominated for a Juno award in 2001. In 2002 and 2006 he received from SOCAN the Jan V. Matejcek Concert Music Award as the most performed and broadcast Canadian composer. In 2003 complete concerts of his compositions were given at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and in Gorizia, Italy, his birthplace. Mozetich was one of the seven musicians featured in the series of short films 40 on 40 (2004, Mercury Films) honouring the Ontario Arts Council. Among his numerous commissioned works is Love You Forever (2005) for Quartetto Gelato, also produced as part of a DVD that has been shown around the world. He was the featured composer at the 2008 Scotia Festival of Music, and in 2010 his Angels in Flight and Lament in the Trampled Garden were both nominated for a Juno in the category Classical Composition of the Year, with the latter winning the award.