Stephen Whittington
Encyclopedia
Stephen Whittington is an Australia
n composer, pianist, teacher and writer on music.
, 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 commissioned 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. In 2009 he premiered a new multimedia performance, Rhythmus 09, including films by Man Ray, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter and Marcel Duchamp, performed with music by Erwin Schulhoff
, Stefan Wolpe
, John Cage
and Whittington himself.
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.
Legend (1988). Two prepared Pianos.
The Windmill (1992). String Quartet.
Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (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 Buñuel.
Le Tombeau de Satie (2004). Piano solo.
Custom-Made Valses (2005). Piano solo.
Interior Voice (2006). Piano solo.
Made in Korea (2005-6). Guitar duo.
Nazaretheana (2006). Flute and Guitar.
Strike! (2008). Music for the film by Sergei Eisenstein (2008). Chamber ensemble.
Emak-Bakia (2009). Piano. Score for the film by Man Ray.
...from a thatched hut (2010). String Quartet.
Furniture Music. Arrangements of the music of Erik Satie (2010). String Quartet.
An Australian Christmas. ABC Classics, 1997.
. First published 1994. Available online at http://www.satie-archives.com/web/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.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n composer, pianist, teacher and writer on music.
Biography
Whittington was born in AdelaideAdelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, 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
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
in 1968. Further stimulus came from listening to radio broadcasts by David Ahern
David Ahern
David Anthony Ahern was an Australian composer and music critic, who became a prominent artist in the avant-garde genre after his best-known work, Ned Kelly Music was released and performed at the Sydney Proms music series.Born and raised in Sydney, Ahern decided to become a composer in his...
, where he heard for the first time music by Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
and La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
.
In the 1970s Whittington began performing contemporary music in Adelaide, giving the first performances in Australia of music by George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
, Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew
Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...
, Howard Skempton
Howard Skempton
Howard Skempton is a British composer and accordionist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music...
, James Tenney
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
, Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran
Composer Alvin Curran , is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds....
, Peter Garland
Peter Garland
Peter Garland is a composer best known for publishing Soundings Press, one of the few sources of new music scores and articles while in print...
, Claude Vivier
Claude Vivier
-Biography:Born to unknown parents in Montreal, Vivier was adopted at the age of three by a poor French-Canadian family. From the age of thirteen, he attended boarding schools run by the Marist Brothers, a religious order that prepared young boys for a vocation in the priesthood. At the age of...
, Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
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
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
.
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
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
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
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
, James Tenney
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
, Malcolm Goldstein
Malcolm Goldstein
Malcolm Goldstein is a composer, violinist and improviser who has been active in the presentation of new music and dance since the early 1960s. He received an M.A. in music composition from Columbia University in 1960, having studied with Otto Luening...
, Christian Wolff
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
, Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran
Composer Alvin Curran , is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds....
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
Simeon ten Holt
Simeon ten Holt is a Dutch composer. Ten Holt studied with Jakob van Domselaer, eventually developing a highly personal style of minimal composition...
(Horizon), Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Morton Feldman, Peter Garland, and commissioned new works from Australian composers. It also played distinctive arrangements of popular music from The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
. 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
James Tenney
James Tenney was an American composer and influential music theorist.-Biography:Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School of Music, Bennington College and the University of Illinois...
, Philip Corner
Philip Corner
Philip Corner is an American composer, action musician, trombone/alphornist, sometime vocalist, pianist-improvisor, theorist-educator, graphic score designer, and visual artist, collage&assembleur, calligrapher.-Biography:After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner...
, Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
and experimental film-maker Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
. 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
Howard Skempton
Howard Skempton is a British composer and accordionist. Since the late 1960s, when he helped organize the Scratch Orchestra, he has been associated with the English school of experimental music...
(1991), Peter Garland
Peter Garland
Peter Garland is a composer best known for publishing Soundings Press, one of the few sources of new music scores and articles while in print...
(1992), and Philip Corner
Philip Corner
Philip Corner is an American composer, action musician, trombone/alphornist, sometime vocalist, pianist-improvisor, theorist-educator, graphic score designer, and visual artist, collage&assembleur, calligrapher.-Biography:After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner...
(1995). He also performed an epic series of concerts featuring the piano works of Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman
Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...
, 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. In 2009 he premiered a new multimedia performance, Rhythmus 09, including films by Man Ray, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter and Marcel Duchamp, performed with music by Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff
Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer and pianist.-Life:Born in Prague of Jewish-German origin, Schulhoff was one of the brightest figures in a generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany...
, Stefan Wolpe
Stefan Wolpe
Stefan Wolpe was a German-born composer.-Life:Wolpe was born in Berlin. He attended the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory from the age of fourteen, and the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1920-1921. He studied composition under Franz Schreker and was also a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni...
, John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
and Whittington himself.
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
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...
, 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 Orchestra (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 Buñuel.
Le Tombeau de Satie (2004). Piano solo.
Custom-Made Valses (2005). Piano solo.
Interior Voice (2006). Piano solo.
Made in Korea (2005-6). Guitar duo.
Nazaretheana (2006). Flute and Guitar.
Strike! (2008). Music for the film by Sergei Eisenstein (2008). Chamber ensemble.
Emak-Bakia (2009). Piano. Score for the film by Man Ray.
...from a thatched hut (2010). String Quartet.
Furniture Music. Arrangements of the music of Erik Satie (2010). String Quartet.
Discography
Aujourd'hui l'Australie. Galun Records, 2003. http://www.asso-galun.com/francais/musique/Ecoutes.htmAn Australian Christmas. ABC Classics, 1997.
Publications
Serious Immobilities: On the 100th Anniversary of Satie's VexationsVexations
Vexations is a noted musical work by Erik Satie. Apparently conceived for keyboard , it consists of a short theme in the bass whose four presentations are alternatively heard unaccompanied and played with chords above...
. First published 1994. Available online at http://www.satie-archives.com/web/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.