With a large number of presentations of his music in Canada, USA, Europe, and elsewhere every year, a continuous stream of commissions by an international list of soloists and ensembles and several recording projects by major and independent labels, 2008 and 2006 Juno Award winner Christos Hatzis “is currently enjoying a growing international reputation as one of the most important composers writing today" (CBC Records). A professor of composition at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, Christos Hatzis is the recipient of several national and international distinctions such as the Jean A. Chalmers National Music Award, the Prix Italia Special Prize, the Prix Bohemia Radio, the Jules Léger Prize for chamber music and the New Pioneer Award as well as four Juno Award nominations (2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008) in addition to his 2008 and 2006 Juno Awards in the “Classical Composition of the Year” category. Compact disc recordings of his works are available on EMI Classics, Sony Classical, Analekta, Naxos, CBC Records, Marquis, Centrediscs, Cherry Red Records and Consipio, many of them consisting exclusively of music by Hatzis.

In the past few seasons, Hatzis’ compositions have been receiving international exposure through performances by touring ensembles committed to Hatzis' music, such as the Gryphon Trio, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Pilobolus Dance Theater, the English Chamber Choir, the Elmer Iseler Singers, and soloists such as sopranos Judith Forst, Patricia Rozario, Isabel Bayrakdarian, and Patricia O’ Callaghan, Arabic vocalist Maryem Tollar, violist Steven Dann, French horn player Jamie Sommerville, flutist Patrick Gallois, cellist Shauna Rolston, percussionists Evelyn Glennie (UK), Beverley Johnston and NEXUS (Canada) and Gordon Stout (USA), to mention but a few. Premieres of his music from 2003 to 08 include venues such as The Royal Opera House at Convent Garden, St. Paul's Cathedral, The Barbican Center and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, UK, The Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Lively Arts Center in Palo Alto, CA, the Megaron in Athens, Greece, The Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, The Winspear Centre in Edmonton and the Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto and important festivals like the High Lights Festival in Montreal and the Luminato Festival in Toronto.

Upcoming projects include PAULINE, a full-length chamber opera collaboration with renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood based on the life of turn-of-the-century Canadian literary personality Pauline Johnston to be produced by City Opera Vancouver in 2010 and be released in the Naxos “Canadian Classics” recording series, a concerto for the Pacifica String Quartet and City Music Cleveland and several smaller works for various instrumental combinations. Premiers in 2007 and 2008 include K627: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in the Spirit of W. A. Mozart with Maria Asteriadou and the Camerata Orchestra of Athens, Tongues of Fire for percussion and orchestrawith Beverley Johnston with the Scotia Festival Orchestra, and Evelyn Glennie with the Vancouver and Calgary symphony orchestras, Rebirth for viola and orchestra with Steven Dann and the Scotia Festival Orchestra, From the Song of Songs for Arabic vocalist Maryem Tollar, tenor Rufus Mueller and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Choir, Psalm 91 for the combined Elmer Iseler Singers and the Vancouver Chamber Choir, WATER for Irish folk instruments and multiple children’s choirs the international Songbridge Project with children’s choirs from all over the world which will take place in Copenhagen in 08 and In the Fire of Conflict, for cello, percussion and dance for Toronto Summer Music. The list of premieres also includes the East Asian premiere of Zeitgeist, representing Greece in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Cultural Celebrations and European premieres of Hatzis orchestral works in Greece, Finland and Bulgaria. Premieres in 2006 included From the Book of Job by Valdine Andreson and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Wormwood, an hour-long cross-over cantata, at Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall, the highlight of a concert  dedicated to the 20^th Anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster and Mystical Visitations for Arabic vocalist Maryem Tollar, a world music band and SurroundSound Audio.

It is not unusual for a Hatzis work to become a signature piece for a soloist or an ensemble. His Old Photographs and Dance of the Dictators have been performed by the Gryphon Trio all over the world hundreds of times. In 2007 alone, Hatzis was he composer-in-residence with three Canadian music festivals (Winnipeg New Music Festival, Scotia Festival of Music and Festival of the Sound). The Camerata Orchestra of Athens under the direction of Alexander Myrat performs a Hatzis work in each season during the past few years, while the 2004 Byzantine Festival in London built its theme around Hatzis' The Troparion of Kassiani. His recent large-scale work Sepulcher of Life, for soloists, choir and orchestra was commissioned by four different Canadian philharmonic choirs and already has had nine performances across North America by nine different presenters, including a remarkable performance at the Temple of Dendur, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in May 2004 with an additional one in Finland in 2008. Hatzis' music is increasingly combined with visual media: His most important multimedia music theatre piece, Constantinople, performed at sold-out halls at Banff and Toronto during the summer and fall of 2004 and was described by the Toronto Star as “A multimedia feast of the imagination...a work unlike any other in the Canadian musical literature …Constantinople defies categories...it is in a class of its own” and by the Calgary Herald as “a stunning theatrical triumph”. In June 2005 Constantinople opened the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Heaven, Connecticut, and in 2007 it had several prestigious international performances including five completely sold-out shows at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden followed by sold-out performances in Calgary and Whitehorse in 2008. The CD of the show won the Juno Award in 2008.

Hatzis' music is inspired by early Christian spirituality, his own Byzantine music heritage, world cultures and various non-classical music genres such as jazz, pop and world musics. He is an advocate of borderless culture and many of his most recent works bridge the gap between classical music and today’s popular music idioms, His compositions are structurally complex while sonically accessible. He has created several works inspired by the music of the Inuit, Canada's arctic inhabitants, and his Inuit-inspired works, particularly the award winning radio documentary Footprints in New Snow, have promoted Inuit culture around the globe. His strongest inspiration is his own religious faith, and his religious works have been hailed by critics and audiences alike as contemporary masterpieces. In addition to composing and teaching, Hatzis has written extensively about composition and contemporary music. His writings have been published on Interface, Organized Sound and Harmony, and are increasingly translated into other languages. Most of Hatzis' writings and other information about the composer are posted at www.hatzis.com  and at www.myspace.com/christoshatzis.

Christos Hatzis’ music is published by Promethean Editions, based in Wellington, New Zealand.