Chris Hazell's Cats
Chris Hazell's Cats
In this post, I want to introduce Chris Hazzell's cats. He composed this brass ensemble music of his former stray cats, Mr. Jums, Black Sam, and Borage. Obviously, each cat has very different characteristics according to each movement.
Chris Hazell studied composition at the Royal College of Music before joining the Argo division of Decca in 1973 as a producer. There he continued the legendary recordings of Sir Neville Marriner, Philip Jones, King's College Cambridge and Peter Hurford amongst others. As the Decca Group labels evolved his artist base widened to incorporate such names as Sir Georg Solti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Charles Dutoit and Sir Charles Mackerras with the Berlin, Chicago, Montreal Symphony and all the major London Orchestras, becoming Senior Producer in 1992. His many recordings with David Zinman in Baltimore have continued (after becoming freelance in 1997) with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, on their award winning Beethoven Symphony cycle. His partnership on recordings with Simon Eadon is about to enter its 30th year.
This is what Chris Hazell, the composer, had to say about ‘Three Brass Cats': ‘Some years ago I had four cats in the house - all were strays and decided that I was a soft touch when it came to free board and lodgings, so instead of moving on, they all decided to stay. Sadly they have all now gone to the great cattery in the sky. However, at the time they were around I was asked to write some pieces for a brass group (The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble). What should I write about? Well, I've always liked writing about the people and places around me (they appear in a lot of my music) so I thought.. I know, my cats. These days I don't have any cats as I travel around a lot with my work, but it's nice to think that they're still with me in the music.'
It's about time someone wrote a piece for Pangmi! How do you think she should be represented musically? I think she deserves some soaring melodies and rich harmonies :)
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