Giya Kancheli

Giya Kancheli is the author of seven symphonies plus a series of very sad compositions featuring the viola, a lamenting choir and a supporting orchestra. His homeland Georgia is very different from other Russian regions. The climate, food and customs are very different from everything the Westerners know about the post Soviet Union. The country borders the Black Sea, Turkey and Armenia, it is a country with contrasting mountains and valleys that seem to have found their parallel in the inner landscape of Kancheli’s music.
Virtually all works of this composer consist of a single movement with the duration of ca. 25 minutes, and they all move between the extremes of profound, melancholic meditation and fiercely pulsating energy.
Just like Schnittke, it turns out that Kancheli likes to work with major stylistic contrasts, but he has a more strict and directed approach, as a result of which his compositions are rather reminiscent of the ritualistic world of Pärt.
(Source: Musicalifeiten.nl)