Thirty years young, we're forging into the future with a tradition of groundbreaking new music. Join us for our year long celebration!

Season 2025 Ensemble Offspring Season 2025 Ensemble Offspring

DIVINE DARKNESS

Music for eyes and ears in an extraordinary and theatrical program. Ensemble Offspring and guests are joined by soprano Jane Sheldon in The Neilson, ACO on The Pier.

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Australia’s Musical Trailblazers

Ensemble Offspring is Australia’s leading new music group standing at the forefront of musical innovation for 30 years. A multi-award-winning musical trailblazer, we present gripping programs of living new music and commission more new music than any other ensemble in Australia.

Ensemble Offspring is led by percussionist Claire Edwardes OAM, with a core line-up of fearless instrumentalists, all soloists in their own right: Lamorna Nightingale (flute), Jason Noble (clarinet), Véronique Serret (violin), Blair Harris (cello) and young guest pianist Ronan Apcar (2025 Hatched Emerging Performer). 

Ensemble Offspring is acclaimed on the international stage, and our development programs support marginalised musical voices including female-identifying, emerging and First Nations artists. Committed to subverting the classical tradition with gripping performances that transcend time and place, Ensemble Offspring navigates the future with open-mindedness and equity for all.

  • "Ensemble Offspring's micro-festival was a tribute to the transformative power of living new music, and sent the audience home grinning."

    Limelight

  • "This is an ensemble of Australia’s finest musicians performing innovative, relevant and engaging new music that bursts with imagination, energy and inspiration.”

    Seesaw Magazine

  • "Ensemble Offspring’s performance...was spiky and seductive, drawing out variegated textures...with reverent care, while emphasising the work’s brittle brilliance."

    Sydney Morning Herald

  • "Every performer was both a soloist and an ensemble member and all were simply perfect.”

    ClassikON

  • "The experience is totally immersive yet gently, rather than boldly, persuasive."

    The Adelaide Advertiser

  • ”Complex tight rhythms (which we have come to expect from Ensemble Offspring) were anything but random; cheeky and compelling...”

    ClassikON