NZ-Greek composer John Psathas shot to worldwide fame when his music was heard by a global audience of more than a billion during the Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and during the intervening years his music has been commissioned and performed by top musicians around the globe. He is known for both his genre-crossing success, and his penchant for works on an epic scale, including the multimedia concert No Man’s Land involving 150 musicians from 25 countries to commemorate WWI00, CubaSonic for 300 musicians performing the length of Cuba Street for Wellington’s CubaDupa in 2021, and Voices at the End for six grand pianos and immersive electronics.

Call of the Wild was written for Australian musician Adam Page, who as a long-time collaborator of Psathas’ shares his outlook of musical creation and collaboration with no boundaries. Before the premiere of the work in 2021 Page said to RNZ that it had been “the perfect culmination of all of our years of conversations and work together… It’s an amazing way to truly write a concerto for somebody. He wrote it for me, and with me as well.”