Stephen Whittington

Stephen Whittington (b. August 13, 1953) is an Australian composer, pianist, teacher and writer on music.

Biography

Whittington was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1953. He studied music at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, where his piano teacher was Clemens Leske Sr. His interest in contemporary music began when he acquired a score of a piano work by Olivier Messiaen in 1968. Further stimulus came from listening to radio broadcasts by David Ahern, where he heard for the first time music by Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew, Terry Riley and La Monte Young.

In the 1970s Whittington began performing contemporary music in Adelaide, giving the first performances in Australia of music by George Crumb, Christian Wolff, Terry Riley, Cornelius Cardew, Howard Skempton, James Tenney, Alvin Curran, Peter Garland, Claude Vivier, Morton Feldman and many other contemporary composers. He championed the music of Australian composers, notably those resident in Adelaide, including Quentin Grant, David Kotlowy and Raymond Chapman-Smith. He also pursued his interest in French music, and became particularly associated with the music of Erik Satie.

Whittington began composing as a teenager, but little of his early music survives. An extended stay in California in 1987 proved a powerful stimulus to his work, particularly after meeting John Cage at CalArts. On returning to Australia he began composing in a new style that combined elements of minimalism, polystylism and chance procedures. A major outcome of this was the score for two partially prepared pianos "Legend", written for a contemporary dance work by David Roche. In 1988 Whittington produced the "Breakthrough Festival", a 3-day event of experimental music at the Adelaide College of Arts and Education, which presented works by Morton Feldman, James Tenney, Malcolm Goldstein, Christian Wolff, Alvin Curran and Australian composers. It included a performance of Cage's "4'33"" on twenty pianos, believed to be the only time so many pianos have been brought together to perform in silence. He also formed the ensemble "Breakthrough", which gave the first performances in Australia of major works by Simeon ten Holt ("Horizon"), Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Peter Garland, and commissoned new works from Australian composers. It also played distinctive arrangements of popular music from The Doors, The Beatles and Joy Division. In 1989 he visited and performed in the United Kingdom, where he met Howard Skempton, and in Canada, where he met for the first time James Tenney, Philip Corner, Frederic Rzewski and experimental film-maker Stan Brakhage. These encounters further determined the direction of his work as pianist and composer.

Through the 1990s Whittington continued to be highly active as a performer and composer, and had a strong influence on the direction of contemporary musical development in Adelaide. He organised the visits to Adelaide of Howard Skempton (1991), Peter Garland (1992), and Philip Corner (1995). He also performed an epic series of concerts featuring the piano works of Morton Feldman, including "Triadic Memories", "Palais de Mari", and "For Bunita Marcus".

In 2000 he performed his one-man show "The Last Meeting of the Satie Society" at the Adelaide Festival. In 2003 he produced a new one-man show "Mad Dogs and Surrealists", and in 2006 "Interior Voice: Music and Rodin", both initially conceived for the Art Gallery of South Australia.

His compositions include many genres and styles, and reveal diverse musical influences from experimental music to traditional music from many cultures and popular music. An interest in Chinese music was aroused by discussions with Chinese composer He Luting in 1979. Interests in Indian music and Indonesian gamelan also developed in the 1980s. His interest in using technology dates back to the 1970s, and he has also worked with film and multimedia.

Whittington currently teaches at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, where he directs the Electronic Music Unit (EMU) [http://www.emu.adelaide.edu.au] , and teaches composition and theory. He also writes music criticism for various publications, including the Adelaide Advertiser and Realtime.

Compositions

Rhythm Studies (1987-1994). Solo Piano.
Legend (1988). Two prepared Pianos.
The Windmill (1992). String Quartet.
Concerto for piano and String Orchesta (1993).
Just a bunch of notes (1994). Percussion duo.
Heartbreak Tango (1994). Mixed ensemble (8 instruments).
Tangled Hair (1999). 4 Songs on Japanese poems. Soprano, flute, piano.
Red Dust (2002). Flute Orchestra.
Un chien andalou (2003). Score for the film by Luis Bunuel.
Le Tombeau de Satie (2004). Piano solo.
Interior Voice (2006). Piano solo.
Made in Korea (2005-6). Guitar duo.
Nazaretheana (2006). Flute and Guitar.

Discography

"Aujourd'hui l'Australie". Galun Records, 2003. [http://www.asso-galun.com/francais/musique/Ecoutes.htm]
"An Australian Christmas". ABC Classics, 1997.

Publications

"Serious Immobilities: On the 100th Anniversary of Satie's Vexations". First published 1994. Available online at [http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/article3.html] and [http://www.ltmpub.freeserve.co.uk/satievexbio.html] .

"Ideas for a Poetics of Intermedia". Proceedings of the Australian Computer Music Association Conference, 2006. [http://www.unisa.edu.au/art/sasagallery/images/surface/stephen.pdf]

"Music education in Search of a Future". RealTime No.80, August-September 2007.

References

*"Seismic Performances. 60 Concerts that changed the world." The Wire, No 276, February 2007.