COMPOSING SONGLINES

The sounds of modern Aboriginal Australia.
After a long hiatus, Australia’s leading new music group Ensemble Offspring returns to Europe to share the best new Australian music. Led by percussion powerhouse Claire Edwardes, the quartet of flute, clarinet, cello and percussion perform Composing Songlines, the first international performance of repertoire from the acclaimed Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers program. ‘Ngarra-Burria’ are Dharug words (Aboriginal people from Broken Bay, Australia) meaning “to hear, to sing.” The Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers program is an initiative which, since 2016, has built bridges for First Peoples musicians to further develop their composition skills and connect with the art music sector.
Ensemble Offspring

Ensemble Offspring is Australia’s leading new music group. Uniting the country’s most fearless instrumentalists under the leadership of internationally acclaimed percussionist Claire Edwardes, they subvert classical music traditions and deliver concerts that burst with imagination, energy and inspiration. As the foremost champions of contemporary music in Australia, Ensemble Offspring have commissioned and premiered over 350 works and have toured new Australian music around the world. Through their relentless commitment to excellence and equality, Ensemble Offspring continue to shape a vibrant and diverse artistic future for Australian music.

Claire Edwardes

Claire Edwardes Internationally acclaimed percussionist and Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring, She has been described by the press as a sorceress of percussion. She is fiercely committed to commissioning new music, and since winning the 1999 Young Performers Award Claire has become the only Australian to win four APRA Art Music Luminary Awards.

Lamorna Nightingale

Lamorna Nightingale’s transformative contribution to new Australian music spans many recordings and performances, the presentation of unique concert experiences, and multiple pedagogical volumes published via her company, Fluteworthy. In 2017 Lamorna started BackStage Music, a concert platform that nurtures the grassroots of art music in Australia.

Jason Noble

Jason Noble is one of Australia’s most adaptable clarinettists, spanning the classical to experimental and improvisatory genres. He has performed at music festivals from Warsaw to London and throughout Australia. His album releases feature new Australian clarinet work reflecting his collaborations with established and emerging composers.

Freya Schack-Arnott

Freya Schack-Arnott (DK/AUS) is a contemporary cellist and nyckelharpist who enjoys a multi-faceted career as a performer, improviser, composer and curator; ranging from contemporary classical repertoire to experimental, electronics, folk and popular art forms. She regularly performs in Australia’s leading new music ensembles and her own projects.

Nardi Simpson

Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaray writer, musician, composer and educator from New South Wales’s North West freshwater plains. A founding member of Indigenous folk duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has been performing nationally and internationally for the past twenty years.

CHOIR

Luise Stender, Marbella Czaja, Emilia Forster, Elise Otto, Fanny Sel Baute, Agnes Hausstätter, Zora Aurelia Damm, Alma Su Baute