Marjan Mozetich

Some of his music has been used by contemporary dance companies, as well as in film. He was the honoured composer of postmodern music at the Gent Conservatory Music Festival in Belgium in 1995, at which, three concerts with live national broadcast featured his compositions.

Since the 1990s, Mozetich's works have continued to demonstrate a taste for lyricism, romantic harmonies, and moto perpetuo rhythms. His works that explore the spiritual have introspective and meditative qualities; these can be heard in his earlier pieces such as El Dorado.

Mozetich experimented with a return to tonality, combining traditional elements to create a form of ‘post-modernism’, or new age romanticism. An example of this is his composition El Dorado (1981), a mixture of minimalistic Gatling gun rhythms, lyrical melodies, sensuous scoring, and late-romantic textbook harmonies.

This piece, with the feel of a Parisian tavern jig, is one of Mozetich's own favourites. It was composed for accordion, violin, viola, and cello, and was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1980. It was premiered by the Canadian-Slovenian accordionist, Joseph Petric, and the Arraymusic Ensemble on January 16, 1981. It was later recorded by CBC records in 1990.

From 1976 to 1981, his style shifted toward a lyrical minimalism with strong harmonic definition, as demonstrated in works like Procession for chamber ensemble (1981) and El Dorado for harp and strings (1981). After 1981 his music became diatonic and post-romantic. This transition can be heard in pieces such as ‘Fantasia … sul un linguaggio perduto’ for flute, violin, viola, and cello (1981, later arranged for string orchestra 1985), Sonata for flute and harp (1983), and Death and the Morning Star for baritone, choir, and orchestra (1986).

Other early works displaying this process include Serenata del nostro tempo (string quintet, 1973) premiered by the Forun Players of Rome, solo pieces for piano (Maya, 1973) and viola (Disturbances, 1974), as well as various chamber works premiered by Arraymusic.

Mozetich became active in the avant-garde music circles. He co-founded Arraymusic with John Fodi, Clifford Ford, Gary Hayes, Michael Parker, Alex Pauk and Robert Bauer, and served as artistic director. The group's first public concert was presented in 1972. He received a fellowship from the Istituto musicale F. Canneti in 1974 to attend a seminar in Vicenza, Italy.

After graduating from grade 13, Mozetich worked towards becoming a concert pianist, but gave this up after he failed his A.R.C.T. (He later received his A.R.C.T. performance diploma in 1971.) He attended the University of Waterloo studying psychology. About halfway through his courses, however, realizing that he was studying out of personal interest and not for practical reasons, he shifted again towards music, and studied with John Weinzweig and Lothar Klein at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.

Mozetich compositional style, which often consists of adapting an existing genre with his own expressions, first appeared in his work Changes for string quartet (1971, revised 1983), which demonstrates the earlier influence on Mozetich of György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Born in Gorizia, Italy, to Slovenian parents, Mozetich moved to Hamilton, Ontario in 1952, where his father found work as a machinist. He started his musical training by studying piano with Reginald Bedford, and later studied composition with Lothar Klein and John Weinzweig at the University of Toronto, from which he received an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto (A.R.C.T.) Diploma in 1971 and a Bachelor of Music degree in 1972 in composition and piano. With the help of the Canada Council he then continued his musical studies in composition privately in Rome, Siena and London with Luciano Berio, Franco Donatoni, and David Bedford.

Marjan Mozetich (born 1948) is a Canadian composer who has written music for theatre, film and dance, as well as many symphonic works, chamber music, and solo pieces. He has written compulsory competition pieces for the 1992 Banff String Quartet Competition (Lament in the Trampled Garden) and the 1995 Montreal International Music Competition (L’esprit Chantant for violin and piano). Co-founder of Arraymusic in Toronto, Mozetich served as their artistic director from 1976 to 1978. After his work with Array, he worked for some time at the University of Toronto music library, and he then became a freelance composer. Mozetich moved to Howe Island, near Kingston, Ontario, and has taught composition at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 1991 to 2010. He has won several awards, including the first prize in the CAPAC (SOCAN)-Sir Ernest MacMillan Award. His major compositions include Fantasia... sul linguaggio perduto, and Postcards from the Sky.