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BIO

George Katehis is a Greek-American composer currently based in NYC whose creative focus is centered around the creation of dense, multifaceted, and visually/aurally complex works for small chamber ensembles and solo performers. His compositional interests lie at the exploration and convergence of “polywork,” polyphony and complexity, music semiotics, various “early music” strategies, and more recently, toy and mechanical instruments, theatre, and mixed media compositions through archival work. Currently, he is an instructor for undergraduate and graduate courses at New Jersey City University’s (NJCU) Department of Music, Dance, and Theatre. Upcoming projects include works for harpsichordist Wesley Shen (2022) and the f:t trio (pianists Jana Luksts, Magdalena Falçes, and Yu-ting Huang - 2022), among others. He is a lover and collector of antiques, mechanical technologies, unique music engraving technologies, and rare books and manuscripts.

A note on polywork: A term that has become increasingly important in defining my current artistic output is polywork. Each recently completed and in-progress work of mine, beginning from 2018, is either explicitly a polywork or informed to some degree by the practice. The term in its simplest definition, is a work which intentionally contains more than one “work” in a single piece, or occurring simultaneously in some manner. In more detail, I consider polywork to encompass a number of various strategies as employed in my pieces: forming elaborate webs of anterior pieces which are layered, mirrored, or cycled, an abundance of textual material treated as intertextual motet, and in many cases, an excess concentration of personnel on a singular instrument, as in my “unity” works: m-her two severed hands, ξ-quartet- ρηξ, and other works in progress. In this last strategy, the competition/cohesion between the performers in attempting to interpret their own parts in “conventional” musical ways, and their labor in doing so,  is thrust to the forefront of what we visually experience and itself becomes another “work” layered “on top” of everything and the thing that emerges most prominently at the surface of the listening/viewing experience.

Born in Manhattan in 1991, George Katehis is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center, studying with Jason Eckardt and Jeff Nichols. He has received degrees in composition from Manhattan School of Music (M.M.) with Reiko Füting (MSM composition scholarship), and Syracuse University (B.A.) (magna cum laude, Brian Israel Prize in composition), among other academic achievements. Most recently, his academic research has focused on various musical traditions of Greece and the Mediterranean, nationalism and identity-formation, and mechanical instruments, and he is currently working on his dissertation pertaining to the laterna, a barrel piano situated primarily in Greece. Responding to a continued need for English-language academic writing on the subject, he has produced translations of various seminal publications, collections, documents, and secondary research concerning various Greek music traditions, which forms an ongoing project. At the Graduate Center, he is the director of the GC Composers, the student organization for presenting concerts of the composers in the program, where he has produced concerts with Loadbang, Gleb Kanasevich, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. Katehis remains interested in issues of composition, pedagogy, and performance of modern and historical plucked string instruments from his background as a performer. Katehis has studied classical guitar with Kenneth Meyer, and early plucked strings (lute, baroque guitar, and theorbo). Other instructors include Brian Ferneyhough, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Mark Andre, and Joseph Downing in composition; Michael Calvert and Charles Weaver in early plucked strings, and various instructors in Byzantine chant.

Fulbright: In 2017-18, he received a Fulbright Research Grant for a proposal pertaining to the analysis of Greek “demotic” music historiography, 20th-21st century Greek art-music, and folklore studies, supervised by various faculty of the University of Macedonia and Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece (Eleni Kallimopoulou, Dimitri Papageorgiou). Simultaneously, Katehis curated and presented several concerts and workshops (piano, accordion) in conjunction with the Contemporary Music Lab at the Aristotle University and Reedblocks Festival, which featured works of emerging, early-career, and young Greek composers. Aided by Michalis Lapidakis, Dimitri Papageorgiou, Dimitris Maronidis, Zesses Seglias, and the pianist Jana Luksts, the project culminated in the premiere of 14 newly-composed compositions by the undergraduate students of the Aristotle University, which were first presented in concert and then recorded at the ERT 3 Radio Station in Thessaloniki on their piano, which was generously offered.

As an engraver, he has produced work for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and for pianist Renate Rohlfing, Joshua Roman, Longleash, among others. Clients of film photography have included Longleash (Loretto Project), Jana Luksts (press), and Matt Siffert (press). He has film with documentary filmmaker Mariano Wainzstein, and has collaborated with Braund Studios (NYC/LA) and Superreel (FN) on videos of his works. He continues to produce film and recording work for performers such as Jana Luksts, Gleb Kanasevich, and others.

Selected Performances: Katehis’ music has been performed in North America and Europe and exhibited in numerous festivals, lectures, workshops, and masterclasses (Dinosaur Annex, Loadbang, Friedrich Gauwerky, Loretto Project with Longleash, JACK quartet). He has received grants, residencies, and prizes from the Goethe Institut, American Guild of Organists (AGO), the American Accordionists’ Association (AAA), Fulbright Foundation, the Canada Arts Council, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (FCA), and has had work featured in the Society of Composers’ (SCI) annual journal of scores. In 2016-19, Katehis’ work for solo piano, white as ash, and constellation (1-a), from the [Orfeas-zyklus] received performances in Toronto, CA (Walter Hall & Yorkminster Baptist Church), the Musiikin Aika “Time of Music” festival, Vitasaari, FN, the 2016 Darmstadt IMD Ferienkurse, Sound Symposium Festival (Newfoundland, CA), Thessaloniki (GR), Spectrum (NYC), and Benzaquen Hall at the Dimenna Center (NYC), all by pianist Jana Luksts. In 2017, he received a commission from the American Accordionists’ Association (AAA) for a large-scale work for solo accordion for Finnish accordionist Matti Pulkki, which is published by Edition Avantus. become/desiccated, the resulting work, was premiered in New York at Benzaquen Hall, Dimenna Center (subsequent performances in Toronto, Gallery 345, 2017, Helsinki, Camerata Hall, Musiikkitalo, 2018, Basel, Basel Music Academy, and Thessaloniki Reedblocks Accordion Festival, 2018). In the Spring of 2020, m – her two severed hands, a work for piano six-hands, was premiered in Toronto (918 Bathurst) on a concert presented by meta.ξ.

meta.ξ: In the Fall of 2018, Katehis founded meta.ξ (www.meta-ksi.com), a collective of Greek composers and artists acting as curators of experimental art, music, and design centered around the ideas of “crisis” and “post-crisis,” representation and identity, and alternative artistic spaces. In its first season (2019-20), meta.ξ presented concerts NYC and Toronto with Jana Luksts, was awarded a EVGE commendation for design work with Blind Studio. The group and continues to commission, produce, and present work.

(updated 03/2022)

Photography credits:
Mariano Wainsztein
Jana Luksts
Lucinda Chiu

“The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of [their] own.”
— Heraclitus
“Fauvel, cogita. Quod preterit mundi figura. Fugit subita; sic interit quasi pictura.”
— Fauvel, reflect that the shape of the world is passing away. It flees suddenly, it perishes like a picture.
“hic lapis gerrit in se similitudinem coeli.”
“mundus senescit.”

Short bio:

George Katehis is a Greek-American composer who specializes in high-density and complex works for small chamber ensembles. His scholarly and compositional interests include early music, contemporary performance practice, polyphony and complexity, the semiotics of music, and archival work relating to rare and apocryphal 20th century scores and texts. More recently, his research has expanded to the Byzantine music tradition and mechanical instruments such as barrel pianos. He has received grants and prizes from the American Guild of Organists (AGO), the American Accordionists’ Association (AAA), Fulbright Foundation, the Canada Arts Council, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA). Katehis’ music has been performed throughout North America and Europe, with upcoming performances in Athens, Thessaloniki, New York, and Stuttgart. In 2018, Katehis founded meta.ξ, a collective of Greek composers and artists acting as international curators of experimental and post-crisis Greek art, music, and design. Currently, he is an instructor at New Jersey City University’s Department of Music, Dance, and Theatre, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center, studying with Jason Eckardt and Jeff Nichols.

George Katehis ist ein griechisch-amerikanischer Komponist, der sich auf komplexe Werke für kleine Kammerensembles konzentriert. Seine akademischen und musikalischen Interessen umfassen alte Musik, zeitgenössische Aufführungspraxis, Polyphonie und Komplexität, Semiotik der Musik, und Archivierung seltener und apokryphischer Partituren und Texte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seit 2019 konzentriert sich seine Forschung auf byzantinische Musik und mechanische Instrumente, wie Drehorgeln. Katehis ist der Empfänger vieler Preise und Stipendien u.a. American Guild of Organists (AGO), American Accordionists’ Association (AAA), Fulbright Stiftung, Canada Arts Council, und Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA). Stücke von Katehis wurden in zahlreichen Konzertsälen in Nordamerika und Europa aufgeführt. Die nächsten Aufführungen finden in Thessaloniki, New York (DiMenna Center for Classical Music), und Stuttgart statt. Seit 2018 is Katehis Gründer von meta.ksi, einem Kollektiv griechischer Komponisten, die sich auf die Kuration experimenteller griechischer Kunst, Musik und Design nach der Finanzkrise konzentrieren. Katehis unterrichtet an der Abteilung für Musik, Tanz und Theater der New Jersey City University (USA). Seit 2018 macht Katehis seine Doktorarbeit bei Prof. Jason Eckardt und Prof. Jeff Nichols an der CUNY Graduate Center (NYC).