Three answers to big questions

Percussionist Pedro Carneiro (L) and soloist Michael Houston (C) provided viewpoints and inspiration for John Psathas.

Wellington composer John Psathas is bracing himself for the week to come. Tomorrow night, Auckland will finally hear his 2002 View from Olympus, played by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

A little over a week later, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra comes to town with his new saxophone concerto, Zahara.

In between, Rattle Records releases the album View from Olympus, a collection of three concertos.

"This CD is the biggest event in my career, even bigger than the Olympics," Psathas says.

"The final letting go of three pieces that are probably the strongest things I've done. There's quite a lot of testosterone energy there and I don't think I have that much in me any more," he adds wistfully.

For all the powerhouse drive that has become synonymous with Psathas' music, he claims that he himself is not always as secure as the music might suggest.

"I have always felt that if composing seems easy and not fraught with anxiety and fear then something is wrong," he laughs.

"When I'm writing I am really hyped-up. I walk around thinking, 'Is there a place for this music in the world?'

"Every decision I make is always plagued by why am I doing this? Who needs it? Who wants it? And why?

"The three pieces," Psathas adds, "are the answers to those questions."

When View from Olympus plays in the Town Hall tomorrow night, the soloists are the same ones who gave it its New Zealand premiere in Christchurch last year - Lenny Sakofsky and Michael Houstoun.

The composer who has worked with international percussion greats like Evelyn Glennie and Pedro Carneiro, claims that Sakofsky is "right up there with them. We are so good at taking our own people for granted".

And Houstoun was "definitely a prime inspiration", says Psathas.

"As a composer, you can't bullshit him. It can't just be a surface. This man has plumbed the depths of the great piano repertoire and he is going to know if your music is vacuous and empty."

Houstoun can be heard on two works on the CD; the remaining offering, the 2000 Saxophone Concerto, was originally written for Michael Brecker to play in Bologna.

A new soloist, American jazzman Joshua Redman, meant a radical new approach to the score, now retitled Omnifenix.

"The first thing Joshua said to me was that he needed to know how wedded I was to Michael's first performance. I found that encouraging. The idea of the piece is that the soloist has to own it in his or her own way."

Redman's style is "incredibly lyrical. There are not a lot of rough edges but beautiful contours. He also has this focus on the musical story, the journey through the work and what it's saying".

The American was also remarkably flexible in a taxing recording situation. "He was completely isolated in a room out the back of the Town Hall watching conductor Marc Taddei on a TV screen," Psathas explains.

"The orchestra was in the hall and the drummer somewhere else. It was pushing him out of his comfort zone and the finished result may not have been so successful if it had happened in an easier environment."

Composer and soloist enjoyed dialogues about the possibilities of merging classical music and jazz.

"But bringing two such disparate things together is doomed," Psathas says.

"In fact, I see them as essentially the same kind of expression with different clothing. Beethoven can generate the same kind of propulsion in his music that the Keith Jarrett Trio can in theirs. I see everything as belonging to one big meta-language."

One aspect of Psathas' own meta-language is his Greek heritage. "People respond to the exotica of it. It's a trigger and a very positive one."

It is certainly a strong component of View from Olympus; the new saxophone concerto ventures even further afield.

Zahara is the solo turn on the NZSO's programme in Auckland next Friday, and it is also included in the orchestra's Hamilton concert the night before.

Saxophonist Federico Mondelci commissioned the work after hearing Psathas' first concerto back in 2000. "Having heard Federico play and knowing him as a person made all the difference when it came to composing the work," Psathas says.

The composer is reticent about the piece - he is not even providing a programme note on the night - but reveals "there are harmonic elements and melodies that will immediately make you think of the cultures that surround the Sahara desert".

I am recommended a book, Skeletons of the Zahara, by Dean King, but Psathas talks more freely about musical issues. "For better or worse, I don't resist where I am being led by my ear," he laughs.

"I have spent more and more time exploring the florid clarinet writing that's happening in Greece, the Middle East and Africa. In the past I have struggled a lot to make melody that feels really true and speaks really strongly. I think I have finally found a way and it comes out of this style of wind playing. There's a lot of that in Zahara."

But the most immediate task for Psathas is getting the music on the new CD played. "For me it will launch these works into the world."

It's a threshold to be crossed and he is proud of the release's accompanying DVD and of the fact they resisted the advances of a leading offshore company for the project.

"I wanted it to be New Zealand-made. It may seem like a very risky and irrational approach, but we really feel like we own this thing. It's a big deal for us. And hopefully it will be some kind of example for other composers, showing they should not be talked out of things."

* On CD: John Psathas, View from Olympus (Rattle), launches September 22

* Auckland Philharmonia plays View from Olympus at the Town Hall, tomorrow at 8pm.

* NZSO plays Zahara at Hamilton, Founders Theatre, Thursday September 28, 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Fri September 29, 6.30pm