Bruce Morley (New Zealand Music Magazine) writes about "View From Olympus" (2001), the double concerto for piano, percussion and orchestra by New Zealand composer John Psathas: "Our composer du jour has really done it this time. Psathas is a composer who seems to have listened to everyone from Ketelbey to Keith Jarrett, and is totally confident of his ability to create a new orchestral music. His compositions . . . are diverse, unclassifiable and fragmented, yet utterly organic. Engaged by the kinetic drive of Psathas' rhythms, classical listeners have taken to the results with enthusiasm". "View from Olympus" won for Psathas the 2002 SOUNZ Contemporary Award, as well as being chosen as one of the orchestral works presented in 2009 for the International Association of Music Information Centres' "IAMIC sounds of the Year". Watch a performance of John Psathas' "View From Olympus", with pianist Michael Houstoun, percussionist Leonard Sakofsky and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marc Taddei . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

During most of his years as a composer, Charles Knox has been employed as a performer or teacher. He was an instructor of contemporary, traditional, baroque and renaissance musical styles; director of student ensembles at small and large colleges and universities; and performer in symphonic and  jazz ensembles. This is often reflected in the choice and style of his creative work. Having held the position of Professor of Music at Georgia State University from 1965 to 1995, Knox now lives in academic - but not compositional - retirement in Atlanta, the city where he has spent most of his life. He has been called "the dean of Atlanta composers", and in 2001 he received the Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts (Award in Music) from the City of Atlanta. Listen to a performance of his 1998 chamber work "2002: Semordnilap No. 2" . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

A native of Washington, D.C., composer Elizabeth Vercoe has been called "one of the most inventive composers working in America today" by her hometown newspaper (The Washington Post). She has worked as a composer in the U.S. and abroad: at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Italy, the St. Petersburg Spring Music Festival in Russia, the Cite International des Arts in Paris, and the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. She has written works on commission for Wellesley College, Austin Peay State University, the Pro Arte Orchestra, and the First National Congress on Women in Music. Her awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Artists Foundation, and the Massachusetts Arts Council. According to the Vercoe her work "Sonaria" (1980) "is a melodrama for solo cello written in memory of my father, an amateur cellist and violinist. Since the music was written as commentary on an imagined dance/mime either live or filmed, the listener is invited to 'screen' those private visual images sometimes evoked by music instead of hastily suppressing them and trying to 'pay attention.' The mood of the piece is at times tongue-in-cheek, but for the most part is entirely serious". Watch a performance of Vercoe's "Sonaria" played by cellist Jerome Desbordes . . . it's our second FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEO for the week.

According to composer Karl Henning, he "writes and plays music which no one else dare, in and near Boston. His music has been played and sung on three continents (NA, Yurp and Oz), and there is unconfirmed rumor that an Uruguayan zookeeper has papered adobe walls with the Henning organ Toccata. Karl has served at different times as Interim Choir Director and Composer-in-Residence at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, where he composed a 40-minute unaccompanied choral setting of the St John Passion (2008)". His work for 10 winds, "Out in the Sun" was premiered in 2006 by the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Listen to a performance of Henning's Out in the Sun . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski's Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1979) is an accessible, if disturbing, rumination on both industrial mechanization and a 1920's folk/blues song of the same name. The work slowly develops from a simple rocking two note figure into a low-register-driven juggernaut that, to those who have experienced it first-hand, replicates the clamorous workings of a cotton mill. A nervous pastoral interlude begins after the manically industrial opening section, which could possibly represents a weekend's rest after a hard week of work. However, all is not restful, as the pastoral melodies become more and more dissonant and manic. Watch a performance of Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues by pianist Ralph van Raat . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

In 1968, Jerry Goldsmith caught massive critical attention with his landmark, controversial soundtrack to the post-apocalyptic science fiction epic "Planet of the Apes" (1968), which was one of the first film scores to be written entirely in an avant garde style. When scoring "Planet of the Apes", Goldsmith used such innovative techniques as looping drums into an echoplex, using the orchestra to imitate the grunting sounds of apes, having horns blown without mouthpieces, and instructing the woodwind players to finger their keys without using any air. The score went on to garner Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score and the music now ranks as #18 on the American Film Institue’s top 25 American film scores. Watch the ending scene of director Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes . . . it's this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Karl Henning fell in love with the sound of the clarinet at age 10 and has been learning, practicing and creating music ever since in pursuit of the Muse. He has studied with composers Jack Gallagher, Paul Schwartz, Nancy Garlick, Judith Shatin, Walter Ross, Douglas Hargrave, Charles Wuorinen and Louis Andriessen. After his doctoral work, Henning lived for four years in and near St. Petersburg, Russia, where he studied the canals, bridges, cathedrals, white nights and starry winter skies of St. Petersburg. This was a period of informal arts study which he feels in many ways equal in importance to his years of formal musical training. Henning has served at different times as Interim Choir Director and Composer-in-Residence at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, where he composed a 40-minute unaccompanied choral setting of the St. John Passion (2008). Hear a performance of his Heedless Watermelon, part of his flute and clarinet work entitled "Three for Two" . . . one of this week's PYTHEAS EARFULS.

According to composer Adrienne Albert, "The notion of writing a piece based on the findings of an Austrian mathematician who observed the increase and decrease in the pitch of sound when the source and observer are getting closer or further apart came to me while traveling through Italy and hearing the myriad sirens passing by through the dense traffic. The motif descends by a minor second returning to the original harmony combined with the repeated minor seconds portraying the incessant sounds of car horns. The melodic lines portray the vibrancy and sensuality of the people in contrast to the craziness around them". Listen to a performance of Adrienne Albert Doppler Effect (1998) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music