Hommage à Igor Stravinsky, Memor, Gershwinesca, Le tombeau d'Olivier Messiaen, Pange Lingua, Ouverture Libanaise, Sindbad for orchestra
Spouse
Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet Bocinos (m. 1980)
Children
2
Website
najihakim.com
Naji Subhy Paul Irénée Hakim (Arabic: ناجي صبحي حكيم[1] [Naji Sobhi Hakim]; born 31 October 1955) is a Franco-Lebanese[2]organist, composer, and improviser.
Hakim's numerous improvisations and compositions for organ, orchestra, and other instruments have received renown. His works have been published by Schott Music, UMP, Combre, Éditions Alphonse Leduc, ABRSM, Fitzsimons, Éditions Gérard Billaudot, and American Carillon.
Biography
Youth: 1955–1972
Naji Subhy Paul Irénée Hakim was born into a Catholic family on 31 October 1955 in Beirut, Lebanon; to a businessman father, Subhy (died 2022), and his wife Katy Hakim. His Christian name is Paul.[3]
His family were music-loving: his father played the mandolin and sang; his mother is an amateur pianist, and he and his three siblings also studied a variety of instruments of different types. Before the organ, Hakim studied the cello.[4][5]
When he was five, he heard a pipe organ in his school, the Collège du Sacré-Coeur of Beirut. The instrument was built by Debierre-Gloton. Impressed by its sound, Hakim asked his mother two years later to get him a piano, to which she obliged. From then on, Hakim received his first piano lessons from his mother, who self-taught.
His brother, Amine, noticed the then-9 year old Hakim's enthusiasm for the organ and helped him break into the organ loft at the college. Naji was able to pull out all of the organ's stops before playing a single note. Frightened by the sound, the two brothers ran away. The school director took notice of the incident and ordered for the loft to be re-secured.[6][7][8]
Hakim, who received permission to practise for half an hour every week (and later received unlimited access to the organ loft, chapel, and campus of the school for practising, under the consent of a new director), then taught himself the organ by using the method books of Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens, Harold Gleason and Marcel Dupré. He would later give his first recital in this chapel aged 15. A year later, he would later master the third of Dupré's Trois préludes et fugues, op. 7, and César Franck's First Chorale in E major.
Studies: 1972–1980
Many had noticed the young man's prodigiousness in the organ and talent for music, however, due to the prompting of his father, Hakim, aged 16, entered the Ecole Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Beyrouth in 1972. He was advised that a musical career in Lebanon would have not been suitable by the present circumstances. The outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, which caused the closure of his engineering school, forced him to flee to Paris in autumn of that year, where he completed his studies at Télécom in 1977.[7]
He also took up a position as substitute organist at Sainte-Odile in Paris and prepared to enter the Conservatoire de Paris, failing the entrance examinations in 1976. Hakim then met Jean Langlais (1907–1991), organist of Sainte-Clotilde and an esteemed composer and organist, and began private lessons in organ playing and improvisation[9][10][11] with him in a relationship that lasted about ten years.[8] With his newfound friendship and encouragement, he was able to enter the conservatoire the following year; where he obtained seven first prizes in organ performance, organ improvisation, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, analysis, and orchestration.[9]
Hakim was in the classes of Rolande Falcinelli (organ and improvisation), Roger Boutry (harmony), Jean-Claude Henry (counterpoint), Marcel Bitsch (fugue), Jacques Castérède (analysis) and Serge Nigg (orchestration); as well as that of Langlais himself (organ).[11]
Hakim's compositional output includes instrumental music, symphonic music, and choral music. His works for the organ includes more than three dozen solo pieces, a number of works for organ and other instruments, and four organ concertos with orchestra.[9][14]
Present day: 2019–
Despite retiring from the academic scene, Hakim remains an active professional concert organist today.
Awards
Hakim has won many awards for performance, improvisation, and composition. For example, his Symphonie en trois mouvements won the composition prize of the "Amis de l'Orgue" in 1984.[15]The Embrace of Fire won first prize in 1986 in the International Organ Competition in memory of Anton Heiller, at Southern Missionary College in Collegedale, Tennessee. In addition, he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale André Caplet from the Académie des Beaux Arts in 1991.[15] He has also been the recipient of prizes at the International Organ Competitions held in Beauvaiss (1981), Haarlem (1982), Lyon, Nuremberg, St. Albans (1983) (where he has since served on the jury), Chartres (1984), Strasbourg, and Rennes.[16][10]
He currently lives in Bayonne with his wife Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet (who he married in 1980), annually visits his homeland of Lebanon, and composes regularly.
They have two children, Jean-Paul, who has followed in his footsteps as a composer, and Katia-Sofia, a musicologist and poet.
Hakim is a polyglot and speaks six languages: French, Arabic, English, Basque, Spanish, and German.
Music
Hakim began composing in 1983.
Organ solo
Cosmogonie (composed 1983. Unpublished.)
Petite suite (composed 1983. Waltham Abbey, Essex: UMP, 2004)
Symphonie en Trois Mouvements (composed 1984. Paris: Combre, 1984)
The Embrace of Fire: Triptyque (composed 1986. Paris: Combre, 1986)
Hommage à Igor Stravinsky. Triptyque (composed 1986. Paris: Leduc, 1990)
Expressions (composed 1988. Chicago, Illinois (USA): H. T. FitzSimons, 1988)
Memor (composed 1989. London: UMP, 1990)
Rubaiyat (composed 1990. London: UMP, 1991)
Variations on two themes: "Old hundredth" & "Donne secours" (composed 1991. London: UMP, 1991)
Rhapsody for organ duo (composed 1992. Waltham Abbey, Essex: UMP, 2005)
Mariales (composed 1993. London: UMP, 1993)
Incantation
Pastorale
Antienne
Hymne
Danse
Le Tombeau d'Olivier Messiaen: Trois Méditations symphoniques (composed 1993. London: UMP, 1994)
Vexilla regis prodeunt (composed 1994. Paris: Leduc, 1995)
Canticum (composed 1995. London: UMP, 1996)
Sinfonia in honore Sancti Ioannis Baptistæ (composed 1996. London: UMP, 1997)
Pange lingua (composed 1996. Paris: Leduc, 1997)[17]
Pange lingua
Nobis datus
In supremœ nocte cœnœ
Verbum caro
Tantum ergo
Genitori, genitoque
Te Deum (composed 1997. London: UMP, 1998)
Bagatelle (composed 1997. London: UMP, 1998)
Chant de Joie (composed 1997. London: UMP, 1998)
The Last Judgment (composed 1999. Paris, Leduc, 2000)
Quatre Études-Caprices for pedal solo (composed 2000. Paris: Leduc, 2001)
Gershwinesca (composed 2000. Mainz: Schott, 2008)
In Organo, Chordis et Choro (composed 2001. Paris. Leduc, 2002)
Le Bien-aimé: Suite symphonique (composed 2001. Paris: Leduc, 2002)
1. J'ai trouvé celui que mon cœur aime
2. Notre joie et notre allégresse
3. Viens, mon Bien-Aimé
4. Avant que souffle la brise du jour
5. Son aspect est celui du Liban, sans rival, comme les cèdres
6. Ses traits sont des traits de feu
7. Voici qu'il arrive sautant sur les montagnes, bondissant sur les collines
Naji Hakim : Seattle Concerto for organ, Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet, organ ; Seattle Symphony Orchestra dir. Gerard Schwarz, Ifo Records. OCLC725084225
Naji Hakim : Piano works, Nicolas Chevereau, piano, Rejoyce Classique.
Angelo, Carl (1991). Naji Hakim's "Symphony in Three Movements for Organ": Historical Background and Structural Analysis (Thesis). Indiana University.
Chase, Thomas. "An Interview with Naji Hakim." The American Organist 30 (1996): 68–70.
Davis, Hope Alysia. An Examination of Compositional Techniques in Selected Organ Solo Compositions of Naji Hakim. D.M.A. document, Louisiana State University, 1996.
Dawes, Christopher. "Le Style, c'est l'homme...: an interview with Naji Hakim." Organ Alternatives 9 (Autumn/Winter 2001): 2–5.
Dhaussy, Jacques. "Naji Hakim : « Rendre la musique d'église à des personnes compétentes »" Una Voce 216 (Janvier-Février 2001): 24–26.
Dufourcet, Marie-Bernadette. "Entretien avec Naji Hakim." L'Orgue 210 (April, May, June 1989): 20–21.
Johansen, Amy. "Naji Hakim: An Introduction to His Life and Works." The American Organist 24 (May 1990): 288–290.
Larson, Karen E. Pitch and Proportion in "The Embrace of Fire" by Naji Hakim. D.M. document, Indiana University, 1993.
