Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis
New York City-based composer Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis (b. 1982) hails from Montreal, Canada. “Dreamy yet rhythmic” (NY Times), with a “terrible luminosity” and “ferociously expressive” (Times Colonist), his concert music is “an amalgamation of the classical music tradition and the soul and grime of heavy metal” (I Care If You Listen). With an intimate background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a characteristic vitality and drive that “favours doomsday chords and jackhammer rhythms” (The New Yorker).
Stafylakis is the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Composer-In-Residence and Co-Curator of the WSO’s Winnipeg New Music Festival. His works have been performed by the Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Québec, Victoria, PEI, Spokane, Stamford, FSU, Greek Youth Symphony Orchestras, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, McGill Chamber Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Roomful of Teeth, JACK Quartet, Decoda Ensemble, ShoutHouse, ICE, Contemporaneous, Mivos Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Nouveau Classical Project, ensemble mise-en, Standing Wave, Paramirabo, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Cygnus Ensemble, Ensemble 212, Alea III, Lorelei Ensemble, Architek Percussion, Norrbotten NEO, and American Modern Ensemble.
His works have been featured at the NY Philharmonic Biennial, Carnegie Hall, Aspen Music Festival, Winnipeg New Music Festival, and the Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival, among others. In 2018–19 he collaborated with progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders on the orchestral adaptation of their music for metal band & orchestra, and in 2020–21 collaborated with Courtney Swain and members of Bent Knee on the prog metal & chamber music fusion dontwaitforme. He has collaborated with notable soloists including percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, violinist Rachel Barton Pine, and bass-baritone Philippe Sly.
Recent and upcoming recordings featuring his music include albums by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Naxos), Jenny Lin (Sono Luminus), the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo (Analekta), Patrick Kearney (Contrastes), and the Hard Rubber Orchestra (Redshift).
His music has been recognized with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ASCAP Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Award, four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, SSHRC, and New Music USA. He serves on the board of directors of GroundSwell (Winnipeg), is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and is a founding member of the NYC composer collective ICEBERG New Music.
Stafylakis holds degrees from McGill University and The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). He lectures at the City College of New York and Purchase College Conservatory of Music (SUNY) and is a guest lecturer at Nazareth College in Rochester. His research examines the conception of rhythm and meter in progressive metal.
