Stephen Whittington

Stephen Whittington (born 13 August 1953) is an Australian composer, pianist, teacher and writer on music.

Whittington was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1953. He studied music at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, where his piano teacher was Clemens Leske Sr.

In the 1970s Whittington began performing contemporary music in Adelaide, giving the first performances in Australia of music by George Crumb, Christian Wolff, Terry Riley, Cornelius Cardew, Howard Skempton, James Tenney, Alvin Curran, Alan Hovhaness, Terry Jennings, Peter Garland, Claude Vivier, Morton Feldman and other contemporary composers. He promoted the music of Australian composers, some of whom were resident in Adelaide, including Quentin Grant, David Kotlowy and Raymond Chapman-Smith. In 2011 Whittington played the music of Erik Satie at a concert held in the Elder Hall at the University of Adelaide. In addition to writing an essay on Vexations, he has participated in a number of performances, including Vienna (2009), and Annecy (2010).

In 1988 Whittington produced the Breakthrough Festival, a 3-day event of experimental music at the Adelaide College of Arts and Education, which presented works by Morton Feldman, James Tenney, Malcolm Goldstein, Christian Wolff, Alvin Curran and Australian composers. It included a performance of Cage's 4'33" on twenty pianos. He also formed the ensemble Breakthrough, which gave the first performances in Australia of major works by Simeon ten Holt (Horizon), Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Peter Garland. The ensemble also commissioned new works from Australian composers. It also played arrangements of popular music from The Doors, The Beatles and Joy Division. In 1989 he visited and performed in the United Kingdom. Encounters with composers there further determined the direction of his own work as pianist and composer. Windmill, a work for string quartet from 1991 in which the players mimicked the sound of rusty windpumps. Music journalist Graham Strahle wrote of the piece "If Australia has produced a classic piece of musical minimalism, this is it, expressing our love affair with the bush."

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