Ensemble Offspring Online Concert: Elegy

In the third Offspring for All digital concert, Ensemble Offspring honours the lives of three monumental composers lost to us in 2021 with performances of six works from the catalogues of musical revolutionaries Louis Andriessen, Frederic Rzewski and Ian Shanahan.

Pianist Benjamin Kopp and cellist Christopher Pidcock open with Andriessen’s reflective and romantic Elegy, followed by a 2017 piano solo which reveals the composer’s sense of humour. Ensemble Offspring present Rzewski’s epic jazz-inspired quartet Song and Dance, and Claire Edwardes – equipped with simple clay flower pots – recites his spiritualistic homage To The Earth. Clarinetist Jason Noble pays tribute to the late Australian icon Ian Shanahan with his mesmerising solo performance of Pastels, and is joined by Edwardes on percussion to close the concert with Shanahan’s formidable Echoes/Fantasies.

Offspring for All is Ensemble Offspring’s digital series, bringing a handful of highlight concerts each year to hungry ears from around Australia and the world. This ongoing initiative will stream live and pre-recorded concerts to YouTube which will then be available on-demand on their website.

The program:

Louis Andriessen – Elegy for cello & piano (1975)/ Rimsky or La Monte Young for piano solo (2017)
Frederic Rzewski – Song and Dance for flute, bass clarinet, double bass & vibraphone (1977) /To The Earth for percussion solo (1985)
Ian Shanahan – Pastels for clarinet solo (1982) /Ian Shanahan – Echoes/Fantasies for bass clarinet & vibraphone (1984) 

Performers: Lamorna Nightingale (flute)/ Jason Noble (clarinet, bass clarinet)/ Christopher Pidcock (cello)/ Will Hansen (double bass)/ Claire Edwardes (vibraphone, percussion)/ Benjamin Kopp (piano)