The big issues: John Psathas is embarking on an activist phase of his career.

by Richard Betts
New Zealand Listener, 18 February 2023

He is one of our most important composers. His works are performed and celebrated around the world. He has a large and appreciative audience. And if we’re to take him at his word, he’s in the process of burning it all to the ground and starting again.

“I’ve written a lot of music I’m very proud of and it’s had a great life,” says Psathas, 57. “But you get to the point where you also have thoughts about the value of what you do. What’s it actually doing?

“I feel I’m moving into a space where in the last chapter of my journey – which I feel is what I’m entering – I have to use everything I’ve learnt and everything I know to push back against the force that makes things worse for us.”

Psathas was led to this place by some of the deepest thinkers of our time: Noam Chomsky, Svetlana Alexievich, Henry Giroux, Brad Evans, and collage documentarist Adam Curtis.

“I’ve been reading these very difficult authors who are essentially letting us know what’s happening in the world, things to do with the way we consume violence, the way that’s normalised. It’s so exhausting but every page is gold; I want everyone to read these books.”

Psathas is particularly keen for young people to engage with the ideas he’s come across, but acknowledges that’s unlikely to happen, which is where his own creative impulse kicks in.

“I thought I could act as a filter. I could translate this into something that people who don’t have the time or inclination to read those books can absorb.”

Given that the books address topics like climate change, capitalism and the manipulation of reality, you might be forgiven for thinking that Psathas is being a bit preachy. But before anyone “okay boomer”s this child of Generation X, they should sample Second Hand Time, which tours the country in February and March as part of Chamber Music New Zealand’s CMNZ Series. The work is as much a visual experience as an aural one, with Curtis-inspired projections and a pre-recorded soundtrack (including dance beats) vying for attention with live piano, played here by Michael Houstoun.

Does Second-Hand Time, with its multimedia, multisensory elements that confront the big issues, mark the death of John Psathas, composer, and the birth of John Psathas, activist-artist? Maybe, though he’s reluctant to say it.

“This is what I want to do for the foreseeable future,” he says instead. “This is me now; I want to do this because I’ve found something very strong.”

Republished with the kind permission of the New Zealand Listener