This album presents to of Australian composer Stephen Whittington's stunningly beautiful string quartets: his elegant, eclectic seven-movement...from a thatched hut and his evocative, haunting Windmill. Stephen Whittington is a composer whose very personal music combines elements of minimalism, polystylism, and indiginous musics from many parts of the world. As a pianist, he began championing contemporary music in Adelaide in teh 1970's, giving the first Australian performances of music by Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, Christian Wolff, Cornelius Cardew, Alan Hovhaness, George Crumb, and many other composers. Zephyr Quartet is a celebrated genre-defying Australian string quartet that, since 1999, has been expanding the boundaries of art music via diverse collaborations with artists from the worlds of theater, dance, literature, visual art, environmental art, film, and media art. ''If Australia has produced a classic piece of musical minimalism, [Windmill] is it.'' (Graham Strahle, The Australian)
