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Polytropos
New Zealanders Oscar West and Rennie Pearson are celebrating ten years of playing and touring together as the traditional music duo Polytropos. They have just released their first full-length album.
Multi-instrumentalists West and Pearson are masterful, passionate players of Celtic music arranged in an adventurous, conversational style. Their infectious stage presence and musicality has been a hit with audiences since their debut concert at Wellington Folk Festival in 2011 and in the intervening years they have worked extensively as professional musicians both in New Zealand and internationally.
The name Polytropos – “the thing of many twists and turns” or “the much-wandering thing” – drives the spirit of West and Pearson’s unique instrumental arrangements and represents the journey each set creates for the listener. It also acknowledges the music’s own odyssey from the hills of Ireland and Scotland to the rugged, natural landscapes of New Zealand. Their playing weaves together the tones of the wooden flute, fiddle, guitar, smallpipes, whistles and voice to produce thoughtful arrangements of melodies that are all at once curious, pure and full of storytelling.
