When Orchestra Wellington premiered Akri recently, the audience responded warmly to the bold and colourful orchestration of the new work by composer Briar Prastiti. “Being half-Greek is a really strong part of my identity,” Prastiti tells The Listener. “‘Akri’ is a Greek word meaning ‘edge’. I’m on the edge of being Greek, I’m on the edge of being a New Zealander - but not fully either one.”
Prastiti’s father, a flamenco guitarist, was born in Cyprus and she grew up with flamenco and Greek music in an artistic household. “There’s a lot of influence from Greek singing in Akri,” she explains. “It started out as a vocal improvisation, with the Greek style of melisma and trills.”
This talented young musician, now 31, describes herself as “omni-directional” and crosses artistic boundaries with ease. She followed a teenage dream to be a film composer, meanwhile writing and singing songs, releasing albums and performing in bands and a gamelan orchestra.
Already this year, as well as Akri, she’s composed music for Circa Theatre’s hit play Prima Facie, is preparing a second premiere for Orchestra Wellington and an orchestral work, Pegasus, for the Bay of Plenty Symphonia, scheduled for debut in her hometown, Tauranga.
Next up is a project featuring Prastiti the singer-songwriter. In Wellington’s annual offbeat festival, Classical on Cuba, Prastiti and the Moth Quartet are performing a set of her songs, also scheduled for release on an upcoming album under the moniker Twinn Ethyr.
All four members of the Moth string quartet, Salina Fisher, Tristan Carter, Elliot Vaughan and Nicholas Denton Protsack, are also composers and improvisers, and Prastiti describes the songs as “dreamy, surreal and ethereal.”
About five years ago, Prastiti left New Zealand for a few months overseas. After US touring with the band HEX, she spent three months in Mexico before visiting family in Cyprus and travelling in the Balkan countries. “I landed in Greece, knowing I didn’t want to come back to New Zealand at that point. One thing led to another, and I ended up staying for almost four years. I didn’t expect to live in Greece but while there I learned the Greek language and the Greek life, including a fully immersive nine months course at the university in the city of Thessaloniki. It was really influential.”
Eventually, she felt the call of home. Covid disruptions and New Zealand’s closed border made for an anxious time, and Greece itself was suffering through a refugee crisis and economic difficulties. “And I was born here, I have family here, and I wanted to see them.”
Since returning, she has been awarded the Lilburn Residence Trust residency, and is living in the former Thorndon home of the late Douglas Lilburn, a position associated with the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University. “I didn’t expect to be living in this house, especially so soon after coming back,” she says. “I’ve always looked at the composers who lived here and thought ‘Wow! They’re at the top of their careers and really killing it!’”
The two Orchestra Wellington commissions for 2023 have also meant mentoring from Greek New Zealander John Psathas, the Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence since 2020. She gives a lot of credit to Psathas for supporting her composing career.
“He’s had a huge impact on my life as a composer, as a person, through his music and the opportunities he’s given me. He was one of the reasons I came to study in Wellington.” In 2016, she completed a Masters degree in composition. “John was my professor at university and since then we’ve continued the mentorship and friendship. I can’t put into words how important he’s been.”
Music, she says, “is deeply personal and comes from a need to express things. That includes the dissonance between my Greek and New Zealand sides.” Her shared Greek heritage with Psathas has been an important part of their bond. “It’s something we understand, both being Greeks in New Zealand.”
Classical on Cuba is on at various venues in and around Wellington’s Cuba Street on September 2 & 3 including Briar Prastiti and the Moth Quartet, Thistle Hall. Sept 2.
Orchestra Wellington PHARAOH, premieres of White, Red, Black by Briar Prastiti and Planet Damnation for timpani and orchestra by John Psathas. Wellington October 7, 2023
Bay of Plenty Symphonia Concert 3, premiere of Pegasus by Briar Prastiti and music by Mozart, Wieniawski and Mendelssohn Tauranga, November 19, 2023.
