Johnny Hachem or the ascent of a gifted pianist: Johnny Hachem is a Lebanese-Ukrainian composer and pianist, based in Switzerland. He is the holder of many international awards including the 2009 international award for the Music Composition at The International Composition Conference (Cergy-pontoise, France) and the 2021 Third prize of the Classic Pure Vienna International Composition Competition (Vienna, Austria). Johnny Hachem is one of the most promising composers in Europe, with an extensive resume that includes prestigious awards from around the world. He has been awarded many international awards including the 2009 Music Composition Award at The International Composition Conference (Cergy -Pontoise, France). Discover additional information 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.
While sharing his experiences, Johnny revealed, “My mom used to play the piano while my dad played the violin. They were my biggest influence. I remember very well how touching it was to hear them play together when I was a child.” Besides his parents, other renowned names in the industry have deeply impacted him, including Richard Wagner and John Williams. “Richard’s music affected me a lot when I was young, and it used to take me to another world. I felt that I could live my best feelings while listening to it. I wanted to be a composer like him and compose music that affects people and makes them feel better,” explained the piano genius. Fast forward to the present, he added, “I believe John Williams is the best composer in today’s time and age. His music is breathtaking. He is a wonderful conductor and pianist as well. I learn a lot from him.”
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.
I was born into a musical family. My dad, who passed away 10 months ago, used to play violin and my mom the piano. I remember very well how beautiful it was to listen to them playing music together at home and in church. And I was influenced by them a lot. But when I was a child, we had war in Lebanon and it was difficult to attend the music school, so I put a lot of time into piano improvising and trying to make my own music. My mom started to help me and after that, when the war stopped, I started studying music officialy.