Ensemble Offspring Celebrates 20 Years With Future Retro
Ensemble Offspring is turning 20 this year and is celebrating with a double concert they have called Future Retro. Ensemble Offspring started in 1995 as a handful of musicians from the Sydney Conservatorium. Two decades and hundreds of premieres later, Sydney’s foremost new music ensemble is still pushing boundaries and breaking rules much to the delights of their audiences around the world.
Leading up to this, we’ll be sharing 20 celebratory emails featuring flashbacks to our past, and a look at where new music (and we) are headed into the future. We’ll be looking at a different theme every week; discover old photos, archived videos, recordings, programs and more.
Artistic Directors of Ensemble Offspring Claire Edwardes and Damien Ricketson say that Future Retro will bring together “gargantuan compositions” from the past (Concert 2: Retro) with six exciting new commissions (Concert 1: Future). “It’s a joyous celebration of where we’ve come from, and where we’re headed.”
Future celebrates the very best in Australia’s emerging musical talent. Kicking off at 3pm, Future will include four world premieres and one Australian premiere from composers Tristan Coelho, Cassie To and Kezia Yap. In addition, the concert will include works from composers Samuel Smith and Dan Thorpe from our mentoring program, the Hatched Academy.
Starting at 6pm, Retro will be a diverse homage to EO’s 20-year history of life-changing music. Works include the funky sonic ping-pong of Louis Andriessen’s Hoketus, the exhilarating virtuosity of Gerard Grisey’s Talea and a creative remake of the masterful textures of György Ligeti in Beyond Atmospheres.
Ensemble Offspring invites the audience to join them for drinks and dialogue between the shows to celebrate their past and toast the future.
The programme:
Concert 1: Future
Kate Moore – Fern
Tristan Coelho – read/write error (Australian Premiere) Commissioned through the Noisy Egg Creation Fund
Samuel Smith (Hatched Academy) – New Work (World Pemiere)
Dan Thorpe (Hatched Academy) – New Work (WP)
Cassie To (Sydney Conservatorium composer) – New Work (WP)
Kezia Yap (Sydney Conservatorium composer) – New Work (WP)
Concert 2: Retro
Louis Andriessen – Hoketus
Gerard Grisey – Talea
Gyorgy Ligeti – Beyond Atmospheres
The performers: Lamorna Nightingale and Jodie Rottle (flutes)/Jason Noble and Diana Springford (clarinets)/Veronique Serret and Elizabeth Welsh (violin)/Geoffrey Gartner (cello)/Claire Edwardes and Bree van Reyk (percussion)/Zubin Kanga and Jacob Abela (piano)/Ben Carey and Martin Kay (saxophone)/Martin Ng (turntables)/David Symes & Peter Kossen (electric bass)
