A different sound.Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard Zvonimir Hacko is the first to tell you he's got a fiery personality. A native of Zagreb, Croatia, he is fiercely passionate about the choral music he conducts. Fire always comes with a certain amount of color not of the white race; - commonly meaning, esp. in the United States, of negro blood, pure or mixed. See also: Color , though, and Hacko's had such a colorful history as an arts administrator that a California newspaper once dubbed him "The Music Man" - as in Harold Hill Harold Hill is also the name of a fictional character in the musical The Music Man Coordinates: Harold Hill is a place in the London Borough of Havering, East London, England. It is a suburban development situated 16.6 miles (26. . Hacko, who has lived in Eugene as well as in Europe for the past six years, will conduct the Eugene Concert Choir Eugene Concert Choir is a non-profit choral organization based in Eugene, Oregon, United States. It consists of two mixed-voice choruses: the 100-member Eugene Concert Choir (ECC), and the semi-professional chamber group Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble (EVAE). on Saturday when it performs the American premiere of the Croatian Mass by the late Igor Kuljeric. A congenial, gray-haired man with continental charm, Hacko also conducted the world premiere Noun 1. world premiere - (music) the first public performance (as of a dramatic or musical work) anywhere in the world performance, public presentation - a dramatic or musical entertainment; "they listened to ten different performances"; "the play ran for 100 of the Mass in 2006 in Zagreb, shortly before Kuljeric's death. Hacko - it's pronounced "HAHTCH-koh" - says he had met Kuljeric ("COOL-her-itch") when he was invited by the composer, through an intermediary, to conduct the Mass's premiere. Kuljeric, he says, was then Croatia's greatest living composer. "It is a very, very substantial piece," Hacko says. "It is beautifully written. Truly a masterwork mas·ter·work n. See masterpiece. ." The Mass, the conductor says, is "definitely a different musical language." It's built around modal scales that come out of the Croatian liturgical tradition as well as rhythms from Croatian folk music folk music: see folk song. folk music Music held to be typical of a nation or ethnic group, known to all segments of its society, and preserved usually by oral tradition. Knowledge of the history and development of folk music is largely conjectural. . "The tonal centers are not the traditional centers," Hacko said. "And the rhythms are very typical of that region." The Mass is a form of the Glagolitic Mass pioneered by Leo Leo, in astronomy Leo [Lat.,=the lion], northern constellation lying S of Ursa Major and on the ecliptic (apparent path of the sun through the heavens) between Cancer and Virgo; it is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Janacek in 1926 but used by other composers as well; the term "Glagolitic" refers to the alphabet created by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius in the ninth century to translate the Bible into Slavic. Hack was born into a musical family. His grandfather was a concertmaster con·cert·mas·ter n. The first violinist in a symphony orchestra. and his mother was an amateur singer. Hacko studied music in Europe and the United States. He has a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University in Bloomington. In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, Hacko was the center of considerable controversy in arts circles in Sacramento. There he founded a Metropolitan Music Center and started a Sacramento Symphony, reviving the name of an organization that had been disbanded some years before. A Sacramento Bee investigation in 2004 found that the Metropolitan Music Center falsely claimed that such internationally known figures as cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Joshua Bell were on its advisory board. The symphony also announced that Bell would be performing during its 2004-05 season when the violinist's management denied ever making such a booking anywhere in Sacramento, the newspaper said. In 1998, according to news accounts at the time, Sacramento police and the district attorney formally exonerated Hacko of charges that he and a woman named Deborah Case embezzled em·bez·zle tr.v. em·bez·zled, em·bez·zling, em·bez·zles To take (money, for example) for one's own use in violation of a trust. more than $30,000 and looted office equipment from the Sacramento Chamber Orchestra, where he was artistic director and she was executive director. The investigation lasted 14 months. In his interview here, Hacko dismissed his troubles in California as a cultural misunderstanding. "In brief, it was Europe meets America," he said. "I was asked there to restart the symphony. I was caught in American politics, and I knew very little about it. I was perhaps to some degree naive about politics and got caught in the crossfire A multi-GPU interface from ATI for connecting two ATI display adapters together for faster graphics rendering on one monitor. CrossFire machines require PCI Express slots, a CrossFire-enabled motherboard and, depending on which models are used, either a pair of ATI Radeon adapters or one ." Hacko said he finds it easier to work in Europe. "We don't care who the board chairman is. These games are not important to artists! Some communities don't understand that." The rest of Saturday's program will include Zoltan Kodaly's 1936 Budavari Te Deum. It was commissioned for the 250th anniversary of the liberation of Budapest from the Turks in 1686. Joining Hacko and the Concert Choir for Saturday's performance will be soprano Inna Dukach, who has sung Mimi in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. Opera's "La Boheme"; Armenian mezzo-soprano mezzo-soprano: see soprano. Victoria Avetisyan; Croatian-born bass Boris Martinovich; and Armenian tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan. Concert preview Eugene Concert Choir What: The choir, with guest conductor Zvonimir Hacko, performs the American premiere of Igor Kuljeric's Croatian Mass, along with Zoltan Kodaly's 1936 "Budavari Te Deum" Where: Hult Center's Silva Convert Hall, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street When: 8 p.m. Saturday Tickets: $19 to $34; call 682-5000 |
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