He composed an opera Music for the Living, in collaboration with Rustaveli director Robert Sturua, and in December 1999, the opera was restaged for the Deutsches National Theater in Weimar.
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Championed internationally by the likes of Dennis Russell Davies, Jansug Kakhidze, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the Kronos Quartet, Kancheli has seen world premieres of his works in Seattle, as well as with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur.
The Third Symphony of the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli drew inspiration from Gonashvili's singing, and he was himself the soloist in the first recording of the work (Olympia Records, 1979).
Examples include Arvo Pärt (an Estonian Orthodox), John Tavener (a British composer who converted to Russian Orthodoxy), Henryk Górecki (a Polish Catholic), Alan Hovhaness (the earliest mystic minimalist), Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Hans Otte, Pēteris Vasks and Vladimír Godár.
Special Prize for the best performance of the new quartet commissioned to Giya Kancheli: ex aequo Meccorre Quartet, Poland and Cavaleri Quartet, UK
Gruzinsky gained popularity as an author of lyrics for the songs by Revaz Lagidze, Giorgi Tsabadze, and Giya Kancheli, including for Lagidze'sTbiliso, one of the best known Georgian songs, and for the cult Soviet comedy Mimino (1977).
The metaphorical language of more recent interpretations is palpably more poetic and include the fantasy Styx, inspired by the music of Giya Kancheli (2002); two new versions of Hamlet staged in Tbilisi (2001, 2006); and Waiting for Godot by Beckett (2002).