One of the 40 concerts that shook the world’ said The Wire of Whittington’s interpretation of this work

In association with the Art Gallery of South Australia

Stephen Whittington

Stephen Whittington (b.1953) is a composer, pianist, writer and music critic. A native of Adelaide, he studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and has travelled extensively in Asia, Europe and the Americas, lecturing and performing.

He now directs the Electronic Music Unit at the Elder Conservatorium of Music (where he is also Assistant Director - International) and teaches composition, music theory, acoustics and electronic music. He was a member of the board of the Australian Music Centre (Sydney) for four years (1990-94), and has been a music critic for the Adelaide Advertiser since 1980.

His compositions have been performed at the Adelaide Festival, the Barossa Music Festival, the Australian Music Festival (Brisbane), and the Minimax Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse, as well as in the United States, England, Sweden and France, by ensembles including Die Kammermusiker (Zürich), the St. Louis Chamber Chorus (USA), Sydney Philharmonic Choir, Endymion (London), Triton II (Paris), and the Orchestre Français des Flûtes (Paris).

His recent work, Made in Korea for guitar duo, was premiered in Seoul, South Korea, in April 2007; Nazaretheana for flute and guitar was premiered in June 2007 in Elder Hall. His works have been recorded on CD by ABC Classics (Australia) and Galun Records (France).

As a pianist, he is renowned as an interpreter of contemporary music. He has given the first performance of numerous works by Australian composers, and the first Australian performances of works by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Simeon ten Holt, George Crumb, Pierre Boulez, Toru Takemitsu, Howard Skempton, Henry Cowell, Claude Vivier, Philip Corner, Peter Garland, Chris Newman and many more.

In 2007 the leading international magazine of contemporary music The Wire (London) listed his performance of Morton Feldman’s Triadic Memories as one of ’60 Performances That Shook the World’ over the last 40 years, alongside La Monte Young, Ornette Coleman, Sonic Youth, Jacques Brel, Public Enemy and other luminaries of contemporary music.

With a keen interest in other art forms, he premiered his one-man multimedia show The Last Meeting of the Satie Society at the Adelaide Festival in March 2000. In 2003 he produced a new one-man show Mad Dogs and Surrealists, incorporating music, poetry and film, and in 2006 Interior Voice: Music and Rodin, both originally conceived for the Art Gallery of South Australia. In June 2006 he appeared at the Sydney Opera House with Ensemble Offspring for the Sydney International Film Festival, presenting a program of live music specially composed for four classic silent movies.