Duration c. 4'30"

Olympiada was written to capture the human conditions of intense glory and pain that only the Olympic Games can inspire, while musically tying themes with a historic Greek feel to modern chord changes and melodies. It opens with an Olympic style fanfare to set the tone, and quickly breaks into a variety of themes and settings representing athletic struggle before recapitulating the fanfare at the end.

In its simplest analysis, the piece can be translated as a tone poem of a race with the final fanfare signifying the sense of global unity, brought about for athleticism, which is the fundamental doctrine of the Olympic Games.

Jonathan Bates