Mythic

A few years after my return to Australia, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
commissioned me to write a lively orchestral work that they could premiere
and play on tour. The resulting piece, Heaven is Closed, is a quick,
energetic, rhythmically driven work. Thus, when the orchestra asked me for
a new piece, my instinct was to write something totally different. It grew
out of a passacaglia-like chordal progression which had grabbed hold of me
and wouldn’t let go. I wanted to attempt a direction I had not explored
previously, and that was to stay in a slow, dark mood for a lengthy
period and to see where that took me. Eventually it grew into a kind of a
hymn with variations, sometimes almost romantic, that made extensive use
of the orchestra's brass section. The title Mythic refers to this mental image
I had of musically entering into a large, mythical cave.

For the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, I wrote a work called Deep Sea Dreaming
which was very much about Sydney and the sea. For this work which will be
premiered at the time of the Athens 2004 Olympics, I decided to reflect on
the Olympics - not in an external way - but in a much more internal way. It
seems that so much has changed and so dramatically since those innocent days of
the 2000 Olympics.

Elena Kats-Chernin

“The highlight of this concert was undoubtedly the new work by one of Australia’s leading figures in contemporary music… Mythic’s themes relate to Greek narrative and the Olympic challenge… A fantastic evocative piece that shows the genius of this composer’s creativity.
The Mercury