ENSEMBLE OFFSPRING
TOURING
Australia's leading new music group, Ensemble Offspring is renowned for our fearless innovation and our commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices outside of our hometown of Sydney.
Our current touring programs bring living new music to new audiences in regional NSW, Australian capital cities and regional centres and to the world. If you are interested in booking one of these shows, please email us here.
Songbirds
Songbirds celebrates the breathtaking virtuosity of Australian birdsong with an array of original Australian chamber music commissioned by and written for a trio line up of Ensemble Offspring. Audiences are transported into the Australian bush by the familiar sounds of nature’s own musicians, with a little help from Australia’s leading composers including Brenda Gifford, Robert Davidson and Caitlin Yeo.
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.
To Listen To Sing
To Listen To Sing features highlight works from our collaborative program, Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers. Over the past 9 years, Ngarra-Burria has built bridges for Indigenous musicians to step sideways into instrumental chamber composition, completely altering the Australian landscape of art music compositions and importantly giving a new voice to First Nations composers.
The 'best of’ Ngarra-Burria album To Listen To Sing was released in 2023 on ABC Classic and was nominated for an ARIA Award. This unique touring program features a quartet line up of flutes, clarinets, cello and percussion and an exclusively First Nations program.
Stories of Water and Earth
North meets south and freshwater meets saltwater in Stories of Water and Earth. Featuring Yuwaalaraay woman Nardi Simpson and Djapa woman Melanie Mununggurr, in a weaving of cultures, instrumental chamber music, beat poetry and dreaming stories.
Stories of Water and Earth is in two intertwining halves and is an hour in length - an interactive performance composed by and featuring Nardi Simpson. evoking dreaming stories, traditional songs, sharing the practises of Yuwaalaraay women’s creative and cultural practice entitled Freshwater Woman - in combination with a half-hour work from Netanela Mizrahi and Melanie Mununggurr, delving into Melanie's Yolngu identity, the triumphs and struggles of motherhood, neurodiversity and connections to land and culture.