The rise of a talented composer : Johnny Hachem
The climb of a talented pianist : Johnny Hachem: Johnny has performed his compositions as a soloist at several concerts and international festivals in Ukraine, Lebanon, Switzerland, France, Austria, Germany, England, Spain, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Belarus, South Korea, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar. He has also composed the music of many films, most notably the documentary film by Carmen Labaki: “I Knocked on the Temple’s Door”. To his name, he has a piano concerto, clarinet concerto, Violin concerto and a large variety of instrumental and orchestral compositions that have been performed in Europe & the Middle East. Find extra details at Johnny Hachem.
Some of your works are artistic storytelling of war drama, like “The Battle of Siddim” or biblical themes, like “The Fall of Jericho” or your award-winning “Jacob & Rachel, The Love Story” others are more of standalone pieces like “Dawn”. How do you choose your themes? Is there a constant composing process like Haydn had or you go with improvisations to hone your pieces? Johnny Hachem: My musical compositions often talk about specific events that happened in the past or about certain circumstances that I lived or I dream of living. But when I am playing my own compositions in a piano recital, I always like to have a space to improvise according to how I feel at the time. Improvisation is an essential part of composition. The great composer Rachmaninov did this at several concerts when he was performing his own compositions.
He also composed a very successful orchestral piece, ‘The Battle of Siddim’, now known as ‘The Valley of the Dead Sea.’ This composition has been chosen and performed by The Lebanese Philharmonic, Lebanon, Lublin Philharmonic, Koshalin Symphony & Torun Symphony orchestra in Poland in just one year. Oriental Piano Project is one of the most uniquely composed tunes he has worked on. For that, he chose a good number of old traditional songs from the Orient that had never been written for the piano before. The project became extremely successful as these arrangements were performed in more than 15 countries in the last 12 years and were greatly admired by the audience.
Johnny Hachem: If you ask any modern composer, the answer will be simple: because most people have untrained ears. But as for me, there is a different simple answer: most people doesn’t like the contemporary music and art at all. Even the majority of musicians don’t like it! You know, it’s great to have modernistic elements in music and art, but going to the extreme and producing only bizarre things under the title of “contemporary” that most of people can’t digest, is not something I can agree with!
Johnny has performed his compositions world-wide in countries including, Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Qatar, France, Switzerland, Germany, England, Spain, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. His most notable work include his composition for the documentary film I Knocked on the Temple’s Door by Carmen Labaki, and also for composing “The Fourth Watch”, which was performed by the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra in December 2014 and “The Battle of Siddim” performed by the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra in May 2017 and by “Lublin Philharmonic orchestra”, Poland in October 2017.
He is a very talented musician who has composed music for several films, including the award-winning documentary by Carmen Labaki: “I Knocked on The Temple’s Door”. To name just some of his work he also wrote piano concertos as well clarinet and violin pieces among others that have been performed around Europe & the Middle East. Johnny Hachem’s music is like a window to his soul. The way he sees things, the feelings that are evoked in people by his compositions – it all comes through so clearly and with such honesty of expression because Johnny himself has been there before you know.
