John Psathas - Biography

John Psathas (1966)

John Psathas is one of New Zealand’s most frequently performed composers and has been described by fellow composer Christos Hatzis as one of the three most important living composers of the Greek Diaspora. Psathas’ output has spanned high-energy chamber and orchestral works, film scores and multi-disciplinary works, with strong focus on large-scale collaborative projects in recent years.

Psathas grew up in Taumaranui and then Napier, and left high school early to study composition and piano at Victoria University of Wellington. He then undertook further studies with composer Jacqueline Fontyn in Belgium before returning to New Zealand. Early success came in 1991 with Matre’s Dance, a maximum-energy duet for percussion and piano that has since made Psathas’ name internationally known through having been taken up and championed by percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie.

International acclaim continued to accumulate for Psathas following the August 2000 premiere of his saxophone concerto Omnifenix by legendary jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker. The growing popularity of his Drum Dances for drum kit and piano established Psathas as an exceptional writer for percussion. Psathas also came to embrace writing for large forces; evidenced by the much heralded View From Olympus, a double concerto for percussion, piano and orchestra. Since its premiere, View From Olympus has gone on to be performed by many orchestras around the world. His piano concerto Three Psalms followed in 2004. In 2008 Chamber Music New Zealand commissioned Psathas to write a string quartet, A Cool Wind, for the Takács Quartet. All the while, Psathas continued to write formidable and exciting works for percussion, evidenced by Djinn, a concerto for solo marimba and chamber orchestra, and One Study One Summary for marimba, junk percussion and digital audio, which has become a popular standard among the repertoire of modern works for solo percussion and reflects a period in which Psathas explored the world of electronica.

PE048 – 3

Psathas has always embraced writing for large ensembles, and this has intensified since the turn of the century. He was selected to score much of the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, which led to a proliferation of large-scale projects, collaborating with artists from dozens of musical traditions. Much of his work since 2010 has overt social and historical commentary at its core. Psathas handled the orchestral arrangements for the Elect the Dead Symphony, featuring Armenian-American rock musician Serj Tankian. The album reached No.2 on the Billboard Classical Album Chart. Psathas wrote the original score for the feature film White Lies, described as a depiction of the head-on clash of beliefs and the nature of identity in early New Zealand European settler society. Between Zero and One is inspired by ancient and modern rhythms, and brings musicians from around the world into the concert space via interactive projection, transforming and challenging the traditional experience of fixed-location, temporally-contained performance. Psathas collaborated with Tankian once again for the song 100 Years, which is featured in the soundtrack to the film 1915, an unflinching exploration and remembrance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Most recently, Psathas co-produced and wrote music for the epic experimental film project No Man’s Land—a project conceived to overtly challenge the accepted handling of World War I commemorations—and involved filming and integrating 150 musicians from more than 25 different countries, including Oum El Ghait (Morocco), Meeta Pandit (India), Bijan Chemirani (Iran/France), Marta Sebestyen (Hungary), Vagelis Karipis (Greece), Refugees of Rap (Syria), and Derya Turkan and Saddredin Ozcimi (Turkey).

Psathas has received an array of awards and honours, including twice winning the SOUNZ Contemporary APRA Silver Scroll Award (2002 and 2004) for individual works and being awarded three Classical Album of the Year awards (2000, 2004 and 2007) in the NZ Music Awards. In 2003 he was made a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate and in 2005 was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). He teaches composition at the New Zealand School of Music (Victoria University of Wellington), receiving the title of Professor in Composition in 2011. In 2014, Victoria University of Wellington conferred Psathas the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus), a higher doctorate in recognition for the immense body of work he has contributed to his field.

Latest information about the composer may be found at www.johnpsathas.com.