Majoie Hajary

Marie Majoie Hajary (Paramaribo, 16 August 1921 – Neuilly-sur-Seine, 25 August 2017) was a Surinamese-born Dutch-French composer and pianist of contemporary classical music and jazz. She was also a translator and wrote several books for pianists.

Life Majoie Hajary (sometimes spelled Majoye Hajary) was born in South America in 1921

In 1937, at the age of 16, Hajary went to study at the Amsterdam Conservatory where she studied piano with Nelly Wagenaar and composition with Hendrik Andriessen. In 1941, Margot Vos's booklet Sun Rays was published, for which Hajary composed the music and drew the illustrations. She graduated with honors as a performing pianist in June 1942. In 1943, she won the Conservatory's first prize for her composition Hindoustani Fantaisie, which was performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra. She also regularly visited her native country of Suriname. In 1949, she moved to Paris to study composition with Louis Aubert and Nadia Boulanger. She started transcribing ragas and then went on to write them herself. Examples are New Sound From India (1967), Requiem pour Mahatma Gandhi (1968) and Chants du Gita Govinda (1974). In the 1960s she composed Da Pinawiki, an oratorio about the Passion of Christ. The text was based on her grandmother's Surinamese Bible and the oratorio was opened in Easter week from 1974 performed in several large churches of Paramaribo.

In addition to her performances, Hajary was also a writer and translated the work of others. She provided Max Havelaar's first translation into French. Chants du Gita Govinda (Chants du monde) text by Marguerite Yourcenar read by Maurice Béjart, 1974 Da Pinawieke - oratorio sung every year at Easter in Paramaribo, 1975 Variations 87X1, 1976 Blue Râga for piano and orchestra, 1977 La Larme d'Or - opera in one prologue and three acts, 1996 Râga du Prince - "il ritratto dell'amore" performed by Egon Mihajlovic and Jeremias Schwarzer, (Cybele), 1999

Publications Le Yoga du Pianiste, Paris, 1987, reissued in 1991 (Sedim editor) and translated into Dutch (Strengholt-Naarden, La Haye, 1989) The Art of the Piano, a method within everyone's reach, Paris, 1989 (Choudens editor, ID Musique) La forme du Râga, Paris, 1991

Translations Hajary translated from Dutch to French. Planning by Professor Jan Tinbergen, Nobel Prize winner (Univers de la connaissance - Hachette - Paris, 1967) Max Havelaar de Multatuli (Edouard Douves Dekker) first translation in France (the previous versions being Belgian) (University editions - Paris, 1968) Telemachus in the village of Marnix Gijsen (university editions - Paris, 1969) Plants of the world by H. De Witt (Hachette, 3 volumes, Paris, 1966 - 1968 - 1969) Endangered peoples and customs: Black Africa by G. Pubben and C. Gloudemans (Grund-Paris, 1979)