Ep 17: John Psathas – “Music for connection and compassion, and the quality of the human relationships that we build”

When the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) were exploring how they, as the nation’s orchestra, could respond to the events of the 2019 Christchurch terror attacks and bring people together, they turned to the composer John Psathas. In 2024 that NZSO initiative resulted in three performances of their “Beyond Words” concert. The premiere would be in the Christchurch Town Hall five years on from those attacks – in a sense offering welcome to the migrant experience and seeking to draw something good and whole from that tragedy.He was ready to be involved but only if they could get “clear compass points.” His sense was that this would be measured by the question, “how would whoever was in the Christchurch Town Hall on that opening night receive this?” For John Psathas, “there were so many ways to get this wrong and just one possible way to get it right.”As the child of Greek migrants to New Zealand, he had seen early just how music could trigger intense emotions and a complex of feelings: joy, catharsis, longing, loss. When his family moved to Napier, he worked in their restaurant at a young age. Late at night, too animated to sleep, his musical education began, listening through headphones to a wide range of sounds – drawn always “to music that was positively charged.” He places great importance on the quality of the human relationships that we have and the question: “will we get some fulfilment from being together.” “What I write is a hope to change things for the better. It’s a desire to show that we care for others.”His compositions have often come from, and through, profound relationships. And vulnerability. Perhaps nowhere more so than in “Ahlan wa Sahlan,” composed for the NZSO as part of “Beyond Words.” In this podcast John Psathas talks about music and his life and “the most significant, powerful, certainly life-changing journey that I’ve been on; the most vulnerable I’ve been.”