About Us

Internationally acclaimed percussion soloist, chamber musician and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes has been described by the press as a ‘sorceress of percussion’. Graduating as Student of the Year in 1997 from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, she went on to win the coveted Symphony Australia Young Performers Award in 1999. She subsequently relocated to The Netherlands to undertake a Masters Degree at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories. A resident there for seven years, she was the recipient of many international awards and prizes. Claire was the 2005 MCA/Freedman Fellow and she is the only Australian to win three APRA Art Music Awards for Excellence by an Individual for her contribution to Australian Music (2016, 2012, 2007). In her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring she commissions, programs and performs to the highest level, some of the most innovative and cutting-edge new music being presented worldwide today. Recent highlights include a residency at Music on Main (Vancouver), performances of the Australian premiere of James McMillan’s 2nd Percussion Concerto with the Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House and the creation of her dance show entitled ‘Recital’ premiering at Dance Massive in 2019, with director Gideon Obarzanek, dancer Richard Cilli and co-composer Paul Mac. www.claireedwardes.com

Jason Noble is one of Australia’s most versatile clarinetists, spanning the classical to highly experimental and improvisatory genres. As a core member of Ensemble Offspring for about 20 years, Jason has performed contemporary new music at festivals from Warsaw to London, Shanghai to Kabul, and around Australia, working largely with living composers. His album releases include THRUM (2020) – a collection of improvised ambient sounds created with Kim Cunio on piano – and Chi’s Cakewalk (2017), an album of new Australian works for clarinets. He has also made guest appearances on albums for Gurrumul, Sally Seltmann, ABC Classics, Paul Mac, Gondwana Voices, Ngarukuruwala and Halcyon. Jason collaborates with emerging composers, and is an in-demand music educator and examiner. He has been invited to teach two winter academies at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, and maintains links with staff and students there. www.jasonnoble-clarinettist.com

Lamorna Nightingale is a freelance flautist, concert presenter, educator and publisher who is passionate about the future of art music in Australia. She is a core member of the new music group, Ensemble Offspring, and has been performing with them since 2007. Lamorna has many years of experience working in the orchestral sectors performing regularly with many of Australia’s finest ensembles. In January 2016 she performed with early music ensemble Brugge Anima Eterna at the Sydney Festival and then the Lincoln Centre in New York. Since 2017 Lamorna has curated and produced a new concert series dedicated to new music in Sydney ‘BackStage Music’. Lamorna has created several recordings of new Australian flute music with repertoire selected to suit flute players with less experience with new music. This music is now widely performed by students and professionals Australia wide and internationally, transforming for many flute players their experience of new Australian music. She has recently created an album of new Australian music for flute and electronics with an associated education kit designed to introduce school students to electroacoustic music. Lamorna has also created several pedagogical volumes of repertoire for young flute players through her publishing company, ‘Fluteworthy’.www.lamornanightingale.com

Véronique has established herself as a versatile musician whose repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary art music, folk, rock and improvisation. She is committed to new works and regularly collaborates with Australia’s composers. Véronique has a strong classical background and has worked extensively with Sydney Dance Company, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. Since 2010 Véronique has been a member of US folk harpist Joanna Newsom’s band as both violinist and backing vocalist touring with her internationally. Véronique is also an exponent of the 6-string violin paired with electronics. Recent highlights include performances at the Commonwealth Games with indigenous band The Spirit of Churaki, a residency with Laurie Anderson at HoTa, touring nationally with Kate Miller Heidke , leading the orchestra for Neil Finn’s Sydney Opera House shows, featuring at the APRA Screen Music Awards, collaborating with Bangarra Dance Theatre, duo performances at Woodford Folk Festival with William Barton and working on Gurrumul’s Djarimirri Live. When not on stage, Véronique can be found in the recording studio, climbing a mountain or on her yoga mat.www.veroniqueserret.com

Hailing from New Zealand, and originally coming to Australia to attend ANAM, Blair Harris is a highly regarded Melbourne based solo cellist and chamber musician, known particularly for his strikingly individual interpretations and innovative collaborative projects. Blair is a member of Ensemble Offspring as well as the Southern Cross Soloists and performs regularly as a duo with acclaimed pianist Caroline Almonte. Prior to this, he enjoyed many years performing with Syzygy Ensemble. Over his career, Blair has is in demand as a guest cellist with ensembles and orchestras alike. Most recently he has been guest cellist with the Australian String Quartet, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Streeton Trio, Seraphim Trio, Inventi Ensemble as well as the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, he has performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria on numerous occasions. He has recently performed as part of the Canberra International Music Festival and Peninsula Summer Music Festival and alongside Ensemble Offspring at the Shanghai New Music Festival.

Pianist Benjamin Kopp has performed as soloist with many major Australian orchestras, including The Metropolitan Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and WASO. In 2007 he was the winner of the keyboard section of the Symphony Australia Young Performer’s Awards. In 2009, Benjamin co-founded the Streeton Trio, an all-Australian piano trio. As part of this trio, he has released four CDs (Mendelssohn Complete Piano Trios, Brahms/Ravel, Haydn/ Beethoven/Smalley, Kats-Chernin) which received favourable reviews in Limelight Magazine. In 2014 the trio performed in Wigmore Hall in London. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, China, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia. While living in Europe, Benjamin performed with the Lemanic Modern Ensemble, Ensemble Contrechamps and as part of the European Chamber Music Academy. Recently, Benjamin has also been performing with Umberto Clerici, Daniel Herscovitch and Sydney Chamber Opera. Benjamin moved back to Australia in 2013 to follow his dream of building a straw-bale home with a chamber music hall in the Blue Mountains. He now lives there with his young family. www.benjaminkopp.com

Bree van Reyk plays drums and percussion, writes and produces music, creates performances and makes unkempt musical instruments using old bits of wood and guitar strings. She has toured and recorded extensively throughout Australia and around the globe with Paul Kelly, Gurrumul, Justine Clarke, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Holly Throsby, Sarah Blasko, Lior, Katie Noonan, Darren Hanlon, and many other songwriters and ensembles. Bree is a long-standing member of Ensemble Offspring and Synergy Percussion and has been commissioned by both groups. With visual artist Lauren Brincat she has created new work for AGNSW, MCA, GOMA, MOFO, Next Wave and Performance Space with a particular focus on large-scale performative works. As a composer, Bree has been commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects, Marrugeku, Shaun Parker Company, Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Dance Company, the MCA, The Letter String Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, Synergy Percussion, the Canberra Youth Orchestra, fashion designer Bianca Spender. Bree is currently studying towards a Master of Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as part of the Composing Women Program where she is studying with Liza Lim and Damien Ricketson and writing new works for world re-known flautist, Claire Chase, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Chamber Opera.www.breevanreyk.com

Zubin Kanga is a pianist, composer, improviser and technologist. His work in recent years has focused on new models of interaction between a live musician and new technologies, using film, AI, motion capture, 3D modelling, animation and virtual reality. Zubin has performed at many international festivals including the BBC Proms, London Contemporary Music Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK) BIFEM, Melbourne Festival (Australia), Festival Présences (France), Klang Festival (Denmark), Darmstadt, Podium Festival (Germany), Resonator Festival (Sweden) and Borealis Festival (Norway). He has performed several concerti under the composer’s baton, including with Thomas Adès and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and with Beat Furrer and the London Sinfonietta. As a composer, his solo piano works have been performed at the Waterloo, Cambridge and Bangor Festivals, performed by Brett Dean, and broadcast on the BBC and ABC. As a performer, he has premiered over 120 new works. After graduating from the University of Sydney and the Royal Academy of Music, Zubin was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM (Paris) and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he is now Lecturer in Performance and Digital Arts.

Freya Schack-Arnott is a Danish/Australian contemporary cellist who enjoys a multi-faceted career as a performer, improviser, composer and curator; ranging from contemporary classical repertoire to experimental, electronics, popular and cross-disciplinary art forms. Freya regularly performs with Australia’s leading new music ensembles, including ELISION Ensemble and Ensemble Offspring. Her curatorial roles include co-founder and curator of the regular ‘Opus Now’ music series, an ongoing project exploring relationships between the music of today and classical string quartets; and co-curator of the Rosenberg Museum, together with violinist and improviser Jon Rose. In recent years, Schack-Arnott has performed in a number of festivals and major venues across Australia, Asia and Europe: National Concert Hall, Taipei; JazzSpot Candy, Tokyo; Copenhagen Jazz festival; Sydney Festival; Melbourne International Arts Festival; Vivid Sydney; Dark Mofo Hobart; Supersense; No New Noise; Now Now Festival; Baiame’s Ngunnhu Festival; Day for Night, Liveworks; Melbourne Fringe and SIMA Jazz Festival. freyaschackarnott.com