chamber & metal fusion | MIX

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

excerpts from:
Sun Exhaling Light (2017) 
for orchestra

Commissioned by the Victoria Symphony with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Score and parts available for rental (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact

Program Notes

“[...] But let’s not start with tears, 
or the flashing lights, the sirens, nor the faint voice 
over the cell phone when you heard ‘I love you …’ 
for the very last time. No, let’s ease our way into this, 
let our first lines praise the plenitude of morning, 
the sun exhaling light into the clouds. [...]”
—Richard Blanco, from “One Pulse – One Poem”

On June 12, 2016, a man shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Richard Blanco’s “One Pulse – One Poem”, a stirring reaction to this atrocity, depicts the poet–observer trying to come to terms with the reality of the event. Inviting the reader to join him in calm commiseration, he counsels us to first take stock in our surroundings – in the quiet beauty of our natural and built environment – before joining him in attempting to find the words to express the horror that such an act of violence elicits.

Sun Exhaling Light takes this premise as its starting point. Solar wind is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun. It buffets our planet constantly, Earth’s magnetosphere our only protection against the intense radiation that would inflict severe damage on all life. One can imagine these competing forces as a metaphor for the conflict between the drive to aggression and the protective shield that is human civilization. The piece envisions scenarios in which our culturally constructed defences are eroded, bursts of violence tearing through, leaving us stunned and deeply mournful.

—HS (www.hstafylakis.com)

The title Sun Exhaling Light is taken from the poem "One Pulse – One Poem" by Richard Blanco, used with permission of the author. Excerpt from the poem reprinted with permission; (c) 2016, Richard Blanco.

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) for orchestra | EXCERPTS

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Epitaph of John Keats (1795-1821), written by the poet himself.

Buy score

The Keats Cycle - 4. Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water

This living hand, now warm and capable 
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold 
And in the icy silence of the tomb, 
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights 
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood 
So in my veins red life might stream again, 
And thou be conscience-calm’d – see here it is – 
I hold it towards you.

The Keats Cycle - 5. This Living Hand

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell: 
No God, no Demon of severe response, 
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell. 
Then to my human heart I turn at once: 
Heart! Thou and I are here, sad and alone; 
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain! 
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan, 
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain? 
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease, 
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads; 
Yet would I on this very midnight cease, 
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds; 
Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, 
But Death intenser – Death is Life's high meed.

John Keats

The Keats Cycle - 3. Why DId I Laugh Tonight

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

How fever'd is the man, who cannot look 
Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, 
Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, 
And robs his fair name of its maidenhood; 
It is as if the rose should pluck herself, 
Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom, 
As if the Naiad, like a meddling elf, 
Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, 
But the rose leaves herself upon the briar, 
For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, 
And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, 
The undisturbed lake has crystal space; 
Why then should man, teasing the world for grace, 
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

John Keats

The Keats Cycle - 1. How Fever'd Is The Man

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! 
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, 
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone, 
Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang'rous waist! 
Faded the flower and all its budded charms, 
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, 
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms, 
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise— 
Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve, 
When the dusk holiday—or holinight 
Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave 
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight; 
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day, 
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray. 

The Keats Cycle - 2. The Day Is Gone

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- 
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night 
And watching, with eternal lids apart, 
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, 
The moving waters at their priestlike task 
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque 
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors. 
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, 
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, 
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, 
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, 
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, 
And so live [for]ever--or else swoon to death.

Suite For Solo Cello - III. Scherzo-Expletive

Suite For Solo Cello - IV. Ballad-Mythos

Haralabos [ Harry ] Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Holocene Extinction (2017) 
for orchestra
I. Eden
II. Arrival
III. Threnody
IV. Hammerfall

Commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Score and parts available for rental (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact


Program Notes:

The Holocene epoch, which spans the past 11,700 years, encompasses the totality of humanity’s written history. Our species’ staggering growth and development into Earth’s first global superpredator is unprecedented in the known history of the planet. An unintended consequence of this explosive rise is the pervasive impact humanity has had on the environment. Human predation’s effects on food webs, the destabilization of biodiverse habitats, industry’s role in climate change, overpopulation, and profligate consumption are among the principal causes of an increase in the extinction rate of plant and animal species to between 100–1,000 times higher than natural background rates.

The Earth has experienced five mass extinction events in its history, spread out over hundreds of millions of years. Humanity is the first species to have directly precipitated such a cataclysm – what has been termed the sixth mass extinction, or the Holocene extinction.

This work is a symphonic poem, a meditation on our unfortunate complicity in this ongoing mass extinction event. The narrative is set in four continuous movements.

The first, Eden, imagines an idyllic Earth before the growth of humanity. It seeks to capture the simplicity and balance of the world as depicted in our origin myths. Gradually, a sense of foreboding invades the dreamlike naivety of the opening.

In Arrival, humanity enters the scene. A frenetic increase in energy and aggression depicts our rapid proliferation and takeover of the ecosystem.

Threnody, from the Greek θρηνῳδία, or “wailing ode”, is an exercise in catharsis, a purely emotional response to this ongoing tragedy.

The finale, Hammerfall, evokes the massiveness and cold brutality of industry, an unstoppable force subjugating the musical landscape with mechanical implacability.

www.hstafylakis.com

Stafylakis - Holocene Extinction - IV Hammerfall

Stafylakis - Holocene Extinction - III Threnody

Stafylakis - Holocene Extinction - II Arrival

Stafylakis - Holocene Extinction - I Eden

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Winter Still (2013) poem for violin and piano

purchase score/parts: 
https://newmusicshelf.com/product/winter-still-poem-for-violin-piano/

Program note
In January, the temperature in my native Montreal can drop to negative 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius. This extreme physical state of being can be (and usually is) enhanced
 by the aptly termed "windchill" factor.  An interesting aspect of growing up in a climate prone to such extremes is the appreciation one gains for the stillness of winter; at times, it is as if the gaseous atmosphere in which our daily existence unfolds has solidified into a quiet, crystalline dream. There is pain and beauty.
–HS

Commissioned by violinist Lisa Tipton in 2013, premiered October 21, 2013 in NYC. This recording features Lisa Tipton, violin, and Adrienne Kim, piano. 

www.hstafylakis.com

Winter Still (2013) - poem for violin & piano

Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis
www.hstafylakis.com

Incinerate (2022) for percussionist & piano trio

Premiered by Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Land's End Ensemble, Karl Hirzer conducting, at Bella Concert Hall, Calgary, AB, Canada, on October 1, 2022. 

Recorded by Zana Corbett; edited & mixed by Adam Pietrykowski.

Commissioned by the Land's End Ensemble with the support of Walt & Irene DeBoni and the SOCAN Foundation. 

Program note
“The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.” 
―Nikola Tesla, What Science May Achieve This Year (1910)

To be asked to compose a barnburner of a program closer for the great Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Land’s End Ensemble is unquestionably an honor – and also a challenge, one to which I rose with great joy. As a metal guitarist by training and temperament, I am inevitably inclined to try to write the most powerful, virtuosic, metal piece I can.

Incinerate takes its spark from a single groove, or rhythmic pattern, that haunted my thoughts and dreams for months. Its propulsive drive and angular, off-kilter profile insisted upon my consciousness with a persistence that I could not ignore or suppress: this had to be the heart of the piece.
 
Like Prometheus’s initial flame taking on a life of its own and leading to the spread of a civilization, this musical spark sets off tentatively at the top, presented first by the piano in abbreviated form amongst the kindling of the percussion’s steady patter. Quickly that spark cascades across the musical texture, becoming all-consuming as the piece’s narrative leads to dramatic crescendos, dreamy soundscapes, and violent breakdowns. 

My deepest thanks to Evelyn Glennie and to Vincent Ho for making this project happen and entrusting me with the metaphorical lighter with which to spark our shared conflagration.

—HS | www.hstafylakis.com

Incinerate (2022) | Evelyn Glennie & Land's End Ensemble (live)

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Emergence (2015) 
String Quartet no. 3

Score and parts available for purchase (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact

First two movements only on this recording:
I. Something from Nothing
II. Equilibrium
(III. Nothing from Something)

Performed by Quatuor Bozzini, at the 2015 Bozzini Lab Vancouver. Recorded live on June 2, 2015 at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Score/parts available

Emergence (2015) - String Quartet no. 3 (excerpt)

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

In Memory (2011) for piano

purchase score:
https://newmusicshelf.com/product/in-memory-2011-for-piano/

Performed by Nicolas Namoradze
Recorded live on Feb. 24, 2016 at Elebash Hall, NYC


Program Note
"Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire."
--John Dewey

	The fragility of memory is an interesting thing. In the process of encoding, storing, and retrieving information, our brains engage in an active process of construction that is vulnerable to distortion and manipulation - especially where emotions are involved.
	In Memory is a diptych in which I explore two distinct musical memories: listening as a child to my grandfather practicing his instrument; and myself as a young man playing through Bach's Goldberg Variations during my first summer in Paris.
	In Âge d’or ("Golden Age"), the main melodic motive of this piece is derived from my grandfather's name using the soggetto cavato dalle vocali technique that was developed by Josquin des Prez (and coined by Zarlino). The resulting theme – A G# E D – also is the inspiration for the title of the piece, an appropriate term for these sepia-toned memories.
	A Goldberg Variation, as the title implies, is a variation on the Aria from J. S. Bach's iconic work, in my own style and syntax. Rather than studying the original closely, I composed the piece intuitively, allowing the naturally-occurring distortions of my memory of the aria to embed themselves in the musical flow.
	An adaptation of this work, for sextet (flute, oboe, violin, cello, and 2 guitars), was premiered by the Cygnus Ensemble in Elebash Hall, New York City on May 1st, 2012.

In Memory (2011) for piano

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Ashes to Light the Sky (2016) 
for string orchestra (min. 5-4-3-3-1)

Commissioned by the McGill Chamber Orchestra (Montreal, Canada).

Score and parts available for purchase or rental (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact


Program Notes:

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
 — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Is it safe to look at the stars?
I want to make a wish,
but with the ozone layer gone
is it safe to look at the stars?
— Stephen Daniel Mings, "Starlight" from Nuclear Winter 

Humanity stands on the shoulders of giants. Throughout history, great minds – from Copernicus, to Kepler, to Newton, to Sagan – have looked into the night sky and allowed their curiosity to translate the faint light of distant stars into a deep understanding of the nature of the cosmos. Obversely, with our command of science and technology – and an often troubling disregard for our long-term survival – we hold the means of our own destruction, a potential for calamity that ever looms before us.

Ashes to Light the Sky is both an ode to those great minds of the past and a lament for a potentially dark future. Set in three continuous sections (or movements) in a slow–fast–slow scheme, the piece slips constantly and fitfully between light and dark, optimism and pessimism. 

Opening with an explosion of discordant noise, the first section dwells on a sinuous, chromatic melody that winds anxiously downward, like a rain of ashes. Sporadic bursts of major tonality peek through this brooding sound world, glimmers of light filtering through the ashfall. 

The second section, propelled by a nervous energy, accelerates the conflict between light and dark. Continuous, rippling string figures articulate harmonies that inhabit both major and minor tonalities. A second, more heroic theme is introduced that strives for emancipation and release. As the section reaches its climax, the structure collapses into noise.

Following this turbulence, the third section emerges slow and wounded from the settling ashes. The second theme now returns in a more mature form, growing and reaching higher and higher, eventually attaining apotheosis – while, lurking underneath the surface, our first theme faintly recalls the ashfall.
— HS

www.hstafylakis.com

Ashes To Light The Sky (2016) for string orchestra

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Never the Same River (2016) 
for orchestra

Commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Read by the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra, Felix Mildenberger conducting. Recorded live by Adam Borecki on July 20, 2016 in Harris Hall, Aspen, CO.

World premiere by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Mickelthwate, at the Winnipeg New Music Festival on January 31, 2017 in Centennial Concert Hall, Winnipeg, Manitoba. 

Score and parts available for rental (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact



Program Notes:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
—Heraclitus

The above aphorism, attributed to pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (quoted by Plato in the dialogue Cratylus), expresses a view of the universe as being in a constant state of change. A musical analogue to this concept of impermanence is the chaconne, a Baroque form wherein a constantly repeating pattern (e.g. harmonic progression, bass line, etc.) provides a foundation for a process of continuous variation, decoration, figuration, and melodic invention. 

Never the Same River is a texture-based composition that attempts to embody Heraclitus’s philosophy of simultaneous constancy and flux. The work is propelled by a 26-note melody that outlines a perpetually-repeating harmonic progression, serving as the chaconne theme. First presented by the harp and percussion, the theme serves as a vehicle for the gradual textural development of the musical surface. The orchestra slowly emerges as captured harmonic resonances of the harp and percussion theme accumulate and gradually take over the texture. 

Throughout the work, the instruments of the orchestra act as semi-independent musical streams whose ever-shifting interactions conspire to effectuate a large-scale rhythmic, melodic, articulative, registral, and dynamic intensification. At the peak of this textural crescendo, the music buckles under its own weight and breaks off into disconnected fragments that struggle to rekindle the musical flow in fits and starts. Although the chaconne theme has been looping almost continuously, as the music winds down to its calm conclusion there is a sense of having traversed a great distance.
— HS

www.hstafylakis.com

Never the Same River (orchestra)

Never the Same River (2016) for orchestra

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) 
for orchestra

Commissioned by the Victoria Symphony with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Score and parts available for rental (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact


Program Notes

“[...] But let’s not start with tears, 
or the flashing lights, the sirens, nor the faint voice 
over the cell phone when you heard ‘I love you …’ 
for the very last time. No, let’s ease our way into this, 
let our first lines praise the plenitude of morning, 
the sun exhaling light into the clouds. [...]”
—Richard Blanco, from “One Pulse – One Poem”

On June 12, 2016, a man shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Richard Blanco’s “One Pulse – One Poem”, a stirring reaction to this atrocity, depicts the poet–observer trying to come to terms with the reality of the event. Inviting the reader to join him in calm commiseration, he counsels us to first take stock in our surroundings – in the quiet beauty of our natural and built environment – before joining him in attempting to find the words to express the horror that such an act of violence elicits.

Sun Exhaling Light takes this premise as its starting point. Solar wind is a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun. It buffets our planet constantly, Earth’s magnetosphere our only protection against the intense radiation that would inflict severe damage on all life. One can imagine these competing forces as a metaphor for the conflict between the drive to aggression and the protective shield that is human civilization. The piece envisions scenarios in which our culturally constructed defences are eroded, bursts of violence tearing through, leaving us stunned and deeply mournful.

—HS (www.hstafylakis.com)

The title Sun Exhaling Light is taken from the poem "One Pulse – One Poem" by Richard Blanco, used with permission of the author. Excerpt from the poem reprinted with permission; (c) 2016, Richard Blanco.

Sun Exhaling Light

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) for orchestra

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Critical Density, a quintet for guitar and strings, was written for Canadian guitarist Patrick Kearney, who requested a chamber piece that would draw inspiration from our mutual passion for progressive metal. 
This performance was recorded live in Pollack Hall, Montreal, featuring Tariq Harb (guitar), Aysel Taghi-Zada & Christ Whitley (violins), Lilian Belknap (viola), and Eli Weinberger (cello).

Critical Density - II. Fall

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com
 
String Quartet No. 4, "Aftermath" (2018)
I. Shock
II. Awe
III. Renewal

Score and parts available for purchase (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact

Performed by Mivos Quartet on March 23, 2018 at Tenri Cultural Institute in New York City. Audio recording by Andrey Radovsky, mixed & mastered by Adam Pietrykowski.

Program Note:

"In 2017, I visited the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. It was an emotionally charged experience to see the relics of large-scale destruction in person, to hear the stories of individuals who suffered and lived through the event, and of those who didn’t. My own memories from that morning were stirred up, watching on a television screen miles away, in another city, as the horror unfolded. The shock of sudden, willful violence; the daze of fear and awe in the aftermath; and the slow, years-long period of rebuilding and renewal, both literal and psychological. 

This piece too, then, is in its small way a memorial."
—HS

String Quartet No. 4: Aftermath (2018)

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

The Metal and the Flower (2012)
for tenor or soprano, piano, and accordion. 

Text by P.K. Page (© 1997, the Estate of P.K. Page, used by permission of the Porcupine's Quill)

Performed at Elebash Hall, New York City, by Nils Neubert, tenor; Soyeon Kate Lee, piano; and Red Wierenga, accordion.

The piece was awarded a 2013 SOCAN Foundation award (Godfrey Ridout prize).

www.hstafylakis.com

The Metal and the Flower (2012) - for voice, piano, and accordion

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

In Flames (2012)
String Quartet no. 2

Live performance by the Mivos Quartet on May 21, 2012 in Elebash Hall, New York City.

Score and parts available for purchase (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact


Program notes:

I. All of our bridges...
II. ...up in flames...
III. ...and all that remains...

Composed for the Mivos Quartet, In Flames recasts traditional string quartet form and syntax with 21st-century vernacular. Informed by harmonic and rhythmic idioms drawn from a variety of sources – including film music, Greek dance, and progressive metal – this piece propels the listener through a loosely literary narrative structure, its implacable stream of sound demanding a visceral involvement from both performer and listener. 

The particular focus in this work is exploiting the syntactical properties of traditional narrative form (as found in fiction literature and cinema) and applying them in the context of abstract instrumental music.

More personally, In Flames is a meditation on the shifting tensions of inter-personal relationships.

In Flames was premiered by the Mivos Quartet on May 21, 2012 at Elebash Hall, New York City, USA. It has been choreographed by Ian RT Colless as "From the Feet Up" and performed by Untitled|Collective at the Alvin Ailey Studios in NYC and by the Sydney Dance Company, Australia.

String Quartet No. 2: In Flames (2012)

JACK Quartet performs composer Harry Stafylakis's String Quartet No. 3, 'Emergence', at Elebash Hall in New York City.  

http://www.hstafylakis.com/
http://jackquartet.com

Recorded live on May 6, 2019 by Jacob Sachs-Michalanie & Vicente Alexim. Mastered by Adam Pietrykowski. Score video by Harry Stafylakis.

String Quartet No. 3, 'Emergence' (2015)
I. Something From Nothing
II. Equilibrium
III. Into Nothingness

Score and parts available for purchase (PDF or hard copy) through my website: www.hstafylakis.com/contact

Program Notes:

"Emergence" was composed for the Quatuor Bozzini and premiered in Vancouver, Canada in June 2015.

It is set in three movements or episodes that – through their material and emotional/psychological trajectories – formally describe three states of being:
I. Something from Nothing
II. Equilibrium
III. Into Nothingness

www.hstafylakis.com

String Quartet No. 3: Emergence (2015) | JACK Quartet

Harry Stafylakis (b. 1982)
www.hstafylakis.com

Wheel of Time (2019) 
Suite for orchestra
1. As the Wheel Weaves
2. Blademaster
3. One Power
4. War

Inspired by the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (& Brandon Sanderson), this orchestral suite attempts to capture some of the emotional essence of Jordan's massive fantasy world.

Wheel of Time - Orchestral Suite

WoT Suite-3-One Power

WoT Suite-2-Blademaster

WoT Suite-1-As the Wheel Weaves

Harry Stafylakis | www.hstafylakis.com
Into Oblivion (2019) 
A symphonic song cycle for bass-baritone and orchestra 

SELECTED EXCERPTS

Movements
Part I
1. Now It Is Autumn
2. A Smell of Ashes
3. Daggers, Bodkins, Bullets
4. Quietus
Part II
5. Already Our Bodies Fallen
6. Death-Flood Rising
7. At One with Darkness
8. She Is Gone
Part III
9. A Horizontal Thread
10. Renewed with Peace

Description
A ca. 39-minute orchestral song cycle in 10 movements, organized in three large parts.
Scored for bass-baritone and symphony orchestra.
Instrumentation: 2(picc).2(ca).2(bcl).2(cbsn) / 4.2.3.1 / timp + 2perc / pno(cel) / hp / strings

First performances
October 18–19, 2019 | Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Philippe Sly, bass-baritone | Daniel Raiskin, conductor | Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Into Oblivion – Part III - Excerpt 6 (A Horizontal Thread)

Into Oblivion – Part II - Excerpt 5

Into Oblivion – Part II - Excerpt 4

Into Oblivion – Part II - Excerpt 3

Into Oblivion – Part I - Excerpt 1

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) for orchestra - Excerpt3

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) for orchestra - Excerpt2

Sun Exhaling Light (2017) for orchestra - Excerpt1

New York City-based, JUNO-nominated composer Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis (b. 1982) hails from Montreal, Canada. "Dreamy yet rhythmic" (NY Times), with a “terrible luminosity” and “ferociously expressive” (Times Colonist), his concert music is “an amalgamation of the classical music tradition and the soul and grime of heavy metal” (I Care If You Listen). With an intimate background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a propulsive vitality that “favors doomsday chords and jackhammer rhythms” (The New Yorker).

Since 2016, Stafylakis is the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's Composer-In-Residence and Co-Curator of the WSO's Winnipeg New Music Festival. His works have been performed by orchestras including the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Québec, Victoria, PEI, Spokane, Stamford, Longueuil, FSU, and Greek Youth Symphony Orchestras, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre Classique de Montréal, and Israel Chamber Orchestra. 

He has collaborated with artists and ensembles including Animals As Leaders, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Roomful of Teeth, JACK Quartet, Bent Knee, Decoda Ensemble, ShoutHouse, Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Contemporaneous, Vicky Chow, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Alexandre Da Costa, and Philippe Sly, among others. 

His works have been featured at venues and festivals around the world, including Carnegie Hall and the NY Philharmonic Biennial. In 2018–19 he collaborated with progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders on the symphonic adaptation of their music for metal band & orchestra, and in 2020–21 collaborated with Courtney Swain and members of Bent Knee and ShoutHouse on the prog metal & chamber music fusion dontwaitforme. Hard Rubber Orchestra’s 2022 album Iguana earned Stafylakis a JUNO nomination for his metal–big band fusion composition Source Code, featuring the composer on guitars.

Recent recordings featuring his music include albums by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Naxos), Jenny Lin (Sono Luminus), the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo (Analekta), Patrick Kearney (Contrastes), and the Hard Rubber Orchestra (Redshift).

His music has been recognized with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Leonard Bernstein Award, SOCAN’s Classical Composer of the Year Award, four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, FACTOR, SSHRC, and New Music USA. He serves on the board of directors of GroundSwell (Winnipeg), is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and a founding member of the NYC composer collective ICEBERG New Music.

Stafylakis holds degrees from McGill University and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He lectures at the City College of New York (CUNY) and Purchase College Conservatory of Music (SUNY), and is a guest lecturer at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY. His research examines the conception of rhythm and meter in progressive metal.

www.hstafylakis.com


current as of Apr. 9, 2023

Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis

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