Iain Hamilton; Scottish Composer of Vocal Music

Iain Hamilton, 78, the Scottish composer who turned Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” into an opera. Born in Glasgow in 1922, Hamilton worked as an engineer before attending the Royal Academy of Music in London. He graduated with top honors and began a prolific composing career. Hamilton’s first works were in a romantic style, but later pieces were noted for their austerity, with influences ranging from jazz to calypso. Between 1961 and 1978, he was a professor of music at Duke University in North Carolina and lived part time in New York. Hamilton wrote four symphonies and dozens of orchestral and chamber works, but is known best for his vocal music, which includes a cantata based on the poems of Robert Burns. “Anna Karenina,” premiered by the English National Opera in 1981, was hailed by critics for the “richness, density and brilliance of its orchestral textures.” The American premiere of “Anna Karenina,” was staged by the Los Angeles Opera Theater in 1983. Hamilton’s operas also include “Agamemnon,” “The Catiline Conspiracy,” based on a Ben Jonson play, and an adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s play “The Royal Hunt of the Sun.” On July 21 in London. The cause of death was not disclosed.