About Ensemble Offspring

"This was a beautifully curated concert, the material well balanced and standard chamber music conventions interrogated." (RealTime 92 on Stockhausen's Tierkreis)

Ensemble Offspring is Australia’s foremost new music ensemble, dedicated to the performance of innovative new music. The Sydney-based ensemble is committed to a living classical music tradition combining classics of the 20th century with the music of tomorrow from Australia and abroad. With almost 15 years experience, the ensemble has a reputation for original programming, quality performances and successful audience engagement.

Ensemble Offspring pursues an agenda of directly shaping the music of our future. The ensemble is based on the philosophy of promoting artistic integrity, open-mindedness and challenging the way musicians and audiences think about music. Ensemble Offspring doesn't shy away from demanding repertoire but aims to present such repertoire in a stimulating, inclusive and accessible fashion via unique programming, performance excellence, education activities and inventive methods of presentation. Embracing an eclectic and progressive repertoire, the ensemble can be found presenting spectral, minimalist and complexist classics one week to free improvisation, multimedia and cross-genre events the next.

Ensemble Offspring is comprised of many of Sydney's most talented musicians. Claire Edwardes (percussion) and James Cuddeford (violin) have careers as international soloists, others such as Veronique Serret (violin) and Lamorna Nightingale (flute) perform with orchestras such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Bree van Reyk (percussion) performs in Australia's premier percussion group Synergy as well as drum-kit in various rock bands, while Jason Noble and Diana Springford (clarinets) can be found in diverse situations ranging from performing with indigenous choirs to lecturing in philosophy. When the musicians come together as Ensemble Offspring they are committed to exploring new ways of making music.

Our 2010 series opened with debut performances in the Sydney Festival, of a new multi-media work by Artistic Director Damien Rickertson. Three successful shows in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney were an amazing way to kick off the season.

In 2009, Ensemble Offspring’s projects included: Kontakte, Karlheinz Stockhausen's classic set against the contemporary electronic music of Pimmon performed at the Sydney Opera House and around the country; Thirteen Colours, an award-nominated program of luminous spectral music which featured at the newly opened Melbourne Recital Centre; and Open Music, an eclectic program reappraising the tradition of indeterminate and open-form music at the Totally Huge New Music Festival.

Previous highlights have been: To the Max, an unconventional concert at the cavernous Carriageworks that explored the extreme ends of the decibel spectrum; Waiting to turn into puzzles an experimental audio-visual collaboration between with film-maker Louise Curham and composer David Young that opened the Aphids Reel Music Festival in Melbourne; and A Line Has Two a collaboration between renowned Australian poet Christopher Wallace-Crabbe and composer Damien Ricketson that featured at the 2008 Canberra International Music Festival. Past highlights have also included a European tour as guests of the prestigious Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music; Partch's Bastards, a microtonal instrument-building project; and our original resident spot (as the Spring Ensemble) in Roger Woodward's Sydney Spring Festival.