Composer in Interview: Giya Kancheli

Extract

Q: Does your music sound differently since you left Georgia?

GIYA KANCHELI: Not only because I left Georgia, but because times changed, the situation changed, the political situation changed. All of this makes itself felt. Right now it is a very difficult time for Georgia, and for almost all of the former Soviet republics, including Russia. All of that means a lot to me, I am not indifferent to what is going on there. I feel as though I've never left Georgia: physically I am in Antwerp, a beautiful city, but at the same time I am ‘there’, in my house, with my friends, and with our and my problems. I have one composition called Abii ne viderem, which I was working on during the civil war in Georgia, in Tbilisi. I gave it such a name because in Latin it means ‘I departed, lest I see’. And even after titling this piece so, I couldn't ‘depart’ for anywhere, I was still there. That is why the music couldn't be the same.… In the 1980s there was one situation, in the 1970s another, but in the 1990s everything has changed, and because of that the music has changed.