BioAnthony Pateras is a musician from Melbourne, Australia. Primarily an idiosyncratic pianist, he also works with the Doepfer A-100 analogue synthesizer and composes written works for ensembles, orchestras and soloists. His work is unified by the simultaneous investigation of the formalized, intuitive, electronic and acoustic.
He has composed numerous pieces since the late 90s, each aiming to develop a unique musical situation that strongly communicates on a sensual level. People who have performed these include Speak Percussion, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Brett Dean, Percussion Group The Hague, Erkki Veltheim, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Pateras explores his musical interests further through his bands and projects: high velocity piano/drums explorations (PIVIXKI with Max Kohane), electro-acoustic-free-jazz concrète (THYMOLPHTHALEIN quintet), amplified prepared piano (CHASMS) and immersive electronic noise (POLETOPRA with Marco Fusinato).
Anthony has a particular affinity with percussion and has ongoing creative relationships with percussionists Vanessa Tomlinson and Eugene Ughetti, writing many pieces for solo and ensemble percussion in direct collaboration with the performers. He has also played with some of the top creative drummers on the planet such as Paul Lovens, Tony Buck, Han Bennink, Will Guthrie, Lê Quan Ninh and Robbie Avenaim.
Pateras is always open to new musical adventures, as reflected by his numerous collaborators: he has guested on records by guitarist Oren Ambarchi and electronics guru Christian Fennesz, featured on the Franc Tetaz soundtrack for Wolf Creek, worked for visual art collective Slave Pianos and performed with iconic trio The Necks. Former long-term projects include a live electronics project with Robin Fox and the acoustic free music trio Pateras/Baxter/Brown.
In February 2011 he performed across Europe with diverse musical personalities such as DJ eRikm, guitarist Stephen O’Malley and revox-master Valerio Tricoli. Later this year, PIVIXKI will perform in trio with vocalist Mike Patton at the Great American Music Hall, en route to the Victoriaville Festival in Canada.
Pateras’ music is released through the labels Tzadik (New York), Editions Mego (Vienna) and Lexicon Devil (Melbourne). He holds a PhD from Monash University, and currently lives in Melbourne, where he teaches composition privately in between composition and performing commitments.
TzadikDynamic and colorful music for percussion, prepared piano and electronics from a marvelous young Australian composer. Anthony Pateras has studied composition academically, toured extensively throughout Europe, North America and Asia and has collaborated with numerous improvisers and electronica musicians the world over. Mutant Theatre is a twisted cornucopia of driving rhythms and wild sonic explorations. Creative insanity from down under.
Review by LEVEER on tinymixtapes.com
Isn't it amazing how drastically reading something about an artist or a song can sometimes change the way they sound afterwards? Whether it's reading an interview with the band or a particularly insightful review, it can help unlock layers of the music that you hadn't accessed before. Maybe that's why music heard through a minimum of filters is so enjoyable... but I digress. With Mutant Theatre, my approach to the music was altered considerably by reading the included liner notes, something I rarely do. But then again, few liner notes are as informative as these, with Pateras detailing his intentions of every piece.
At first, I heard the opening work, "Transmutations," as a very able study of dynamics in volume and intensity; but admittedly nothing terribly groundbreaking. He describes the movements of "Transmutations" as explorations of both "various densities of repeated timbral events or gestures" and "the gradual mutation of sonic mass through time." They are his reinterpretations of electronic performance and production for live instrumentation, each a "decomposition backwards from the initial creative impulse." My perception completely changes. Upon listening again, I can appreciate the simultaneous "organicism" and almost mechanical symphony of the six players: evolving slowly and smoothly while attacking and retreating with the precision of a Powerbook. And I'll be damned if it's not exciting. I can only assume the title refers to both the music's mutation within the piece and to the convergent mutation of organic and electronic.
All of the pieces on this album examine the role of time in music. "Inevitable Plasma" finds Pateras playing piano in such a way that his hands at times work as one to more ably explore the extremes of density. On "Meshanitsa," his hands and voice interact to manipulate a single correlated output, each dictating what the other does. The end result sounds almost nothing like piano, voice, or any combination thereof; and at times, it's harnessed to create fascinating and potent results. "Mutant Theatre" has seven "scenes" with separate aims, all written for percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson. She's surrounded with 40+ instruments, and as you may have guessed, is instructed to mutate conventional structures and sources using this arsenal that includes dominoes, toys, mousetraps and balloons. She and Pateras succeed in making utterly absurd yet challenging music. The penultimate piece, "Twitch," is stated to have been written specifically for the performers and their idiosyncrasies, and it relies heavily on solos exposing these quirks. In addition to density and amplitude, this piece adds a dimension of texture, juxtaposing instruments and processing them in real time with a laptop.
It wouldn't be reasonable to expect all listeners to be interested in Pateras' music, but anyone curious in where the trailblazers of avant-garde are heading will be captivated by his bold creative foray. This is yet another excellent release from Tzadik, home to some of the most fearlessly innovative music in the world today.
CreditsSoloistsVanessa Tomlinson: Percussion
Anthony Pateras: Piano/Prepared Piano
TwitchNatasha Anderson: Contrabass Recorder
Robin Fox: Laptop
Anthony Pateras: Piano, Prepared Piano, Voice, Conductor
Vanessa Tomlinson: Percussion
Erkki Veltheim: Viola, Decrepit Violin
James Wilkinson: Trombone, Conch
VCA Percussion EnsembleStephen Fitzgerald
James Lewis
Jarrod McCluskey
Peter Neville (Director)
Danny Richardson
Tom Royce-Hampton
ProductionMax/MSP Programming: Robin Fox
Recorded by: Chris Lawson and Adele Conlin at ABC Studios, Southbank, Melbourne
Mastering: Scott Hull at Hit Factory Mastering, NYC
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