Putting the pizzaz into contemporary classical music with a firm focus on the new and now, rather than old dead dudes, Sydney locals Ensemble Offspring are a breath of fresh air.
Led by acclaimed percussionist Claire Edwardes, they were nominated for an ARIA Award last year and their future sure looks bright. They’ll bring their program of stimulating sounds to the Opera House this Saturday night. Appearing live on the Joan Sutherland stage sans audience, instead they'll be streamed to your sofa on the From Our House to Yours digital platform.
Edwardes will be joined by Ben Kopp on piano, Lamorna Nightingale on the flute, Jason Noble on clarinet, and associate artist Will Hansen packing the double bass. Suitably spaced out on stage, the band invites you to bliss out at home to a new arrangement of Melody Eötvös’s ‘Tardigradus’. It’s a love letter to the teeny tree-climbing bear found in the Sri Lankan jungle, and that musical movement comes with retro vibraphone back-up too.
Ensemble Offspring will also perform Andrea Keller’s ‘Love in Solitude’, which sprung from a Merlyn Myer Commission in 2016 and will be set to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (ok, so he’s a dead dude). And very much alive local electropop hero Paul Mac’s 2019 single ‘Mesmerism’ gets a new lease of life thanks to Jessica Wells’ virtuosic arrangement.
“Paul Mac, Jessica Wells and Ensemble Offspring all collaborated to arrange this piece which was originally released as an exclusively electronic track,” Edwardes says. “Tune in to our Mesmerism show to hear our electro acoustic version.”
Performing live on Saturday, August 15 at 8pm, you can stream it live or catch up any time after the gig. And in the meantime, you can hear Mac’s original here, alongside some other tracks that helped inspire Edwardes and co’s latest show.
Want more genre-blending music? Listen to Amon Tobis’ game-changing ISAM.
