ENSEMBLE OFFSPRING

SONGBIRDS

Songbirds celebrates the breathtaking virtuosity of Australian birdsong with an array of original Australian chamber works commissioned by Ensemble Offspring over the past five years. Be transported into the Australian bush by the familiar sounds of nature’s own musicians, with a little help from Australia’s leading composers. Performed by Lamorna Nightingale (flutes), Jason Noble (clarinets) and Claire Edwardes (percussion), Songbirds captures the magical bird calls of the red centre, virtuosic avian displays and Indigenous musical perspectives on these beguiling creatures of the sky.

Please direct all enquiries to admin@ensembleoffspring.com

Songbirds Past Shows

    • The Twyford, Merimbula

    • The Pavilion Performing Art Centre, Sutherland

    • The Arthouse, Wyong

    • Avant Gardens, Glebe & Kurraba Point

    • Peninsula Summer Music Festival, Mornington Peninsula

    • Adelaide Town Hall, Adelaide Festival

    • Musica Viva Tasmania, Hobart Town Hall

    • Music in the Regions Tour - Ganmain, Wagga Wagga, Temora, Young, Braidwood, GunningDescription text goes here

    • Mount Wilson Music Series

    • Brisbane Music Festival

    • Baldarin Sali, Helsinki

    • Corrugations Music Series, Alice Springs

    • Arafura Music Collective presents, Darwin

    • Blackheath Chamber Music Festival

    • Four Winds Chamber Series

    • Melbourne Recital Centre (link to video)

    • Noosa Music Festival

    • Bellingen Muse FestivalItem description

    • Old 505 Theatre, Newtown (formerly called Birdsong at Dusk)

    • Sydney Festival, Q Station Manly (formerly called Birdsong at Dusk)Item description

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Lamorna Nightingale, Jason Noble, Composing Songlines 2021 – Daniel Boud.jpg

Video Links

Songbirds Album

Songbirds Critical Acclaim

“A highly successful interspecies collaboration!”

— ClassikON

★★★★
“the now-ubiquitous bushfire haze, a premonitory reminder of the destruction that climate change threatens to all that this concert celebrated.”

— The Sydney Morning Herald

"Yet the charm of the song of birds...mingled with music in seven recent Australian pieces, did not fail. Most magical was Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose’s Bitter Springs Creek 2014”

— The Sydney Morning Herald

"Ensemble Offspring played Gerard Brophy’s rhythmically demanding Beautiful Birds with precision and élan.”

— The Sydney Morning Herald

“Caitlin Yeo’s A Tawny Tale is built on a simple motive that is then transformed to capture the stillness of the bird, along with the sudden, darting movements as it catches insects. There was a lot of variety in the piece and exploration of different instrumental colours. The audience was very appreciative!”

— Classikon

“...the musicians joined the contrapuntal web, matching the avian virtuosity with their own”

— The Sydney Morning Herald

"Edwardes’ solo percussion work Screechers & Sorrows featured chirps and echoes from the waterphone, an instrument of metal spikes protruding from a water-filled disk which creates eerie resonance of surprising depth.”

— The Sydney Morning Herald