New Zealand-Greek composer John Psathas shot to worldwide attention when his music was heard by an audience of more than a billion during the Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and during the intervening years his music has been continually commissioned and performed by top musicians around the globe. The NZ Arts Foundation Laureate has achieved a level of international success unprecedented for a NZ composer, his music having moved concert audiences in more than 50 countries on all 7 continents, even Antarctica. He is now also considered one of the three most important living composers of the Greek Diaspora.
Psathas was a sought-after faculty member at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University Wellington for 25 years, before closing the door on that chapter in 2019 to devote all his time to composing and embark on a return to performing onstage.
When glancing over Psathas’ career, one element impossible to overlook is the scope and sheer variety of his collaborations. He has collaborated on a Billboard classical chart-topping album with System of a Down front man Serj Tankian, has written feature-film scores, collaborated with the Grand Mufti in Paris’s Grand Mosque, crossed into jazz in projects with luminaries Michael Brecker and Joshua Redman, and collaborated on an e-book project with Salman Rushdie. There are few composers who cross the boundaries of musical genres to the extent that Psathas does, and with such ongoing global success.
His music emerges from a dazzling 21st century backdrop, where dynamic collaboration with creative masters from all corners of the physical and artistic globe result in outcomes that are visionary, moving, and inspired. Early collaborations included working with such luminaries as Sir Mark Elder, Kristjan Jarvi, the Takacs Quartet, Lara St. John, the Netherlands Blazers Ensemble, Evelyn Glennie, Edo de Wart, Pedro Carneiro, Halle Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of Emilia Romagna, Alexej Gerassimez, and Michael Burritt, amongst others. Then followed a period of intense creative exploration in electronica and jazz, and a series of mega-projects (like scoring much of the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games). All of which has led to an explosion of first-hand collaborations with artists from dozens of musical traditions spanning Asia, Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Australasia.
Percussion has always been a strong feature of Psathas’ output, with a consistent schedule of new percussion commissions from many of the world’s top players. The emergence of COVID-19 also served to further broaden the scope of Psathas’ work, with the 2020 release of long-distance collaborative albums It’s Already Tomorrow, and Last Days of March. He has continued to mentor a wide range of composers and performers, as well as hosting composer retreats at his own haven at Waitarere Beach, and he was recently named one of 12 recipients of the 2021 Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian Awards