Zubin Kanga on performing Elliott Gyger’s tribute to Nigel Butterley​

In my work as a pianist, there are few musical experiences more exhilarating and artistically fulfilling than collaborating with a composer at the peak of their powers. It’s a particularly rare honour to have a piano concerto written specifically for you to play, so it’s very exciting that one of my favourite Australian composers, Elliott Gyger, has done just that with his new piano concerto, From Joyous Leaves.

This concerto is the culmination of a collaboration that we have fostered over ten years. I first met Elliott in 2006 when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Sydney. Visiting from Harvard, where he was then based, Elliott delivered a detailed lecture on some of his recent music (which included his concerto for cello and ensemble, Polishing Firewood) and I was struck by the visceral energy and intellectual rigour of the music, and of the wildly virtuosic writing for every musician in the ensemble that looked impossible on paper, but worked perfectly on every instrument, with a deep ergonomic understanding of the physical limits of performance. Although undoubtedly complex, it also sounded fresh and unique, with a direct immediacy...