Fractured Again is a fragile and exotic work on the theme of glass. The work is a multi-faceted performance experience, combining music with video, lighting design and installation art. Featuring the rare and angelic-sounding glass harmonica, Fractured Again is inspired by a scene from Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor. When Lucia kills her husband, her ensuing descent into madness was to be accompanied by the glass harmonica: an instrument that fell from favour near the end of the 18th Century because it was thought to trigger insanity. Ensemble Offspring have acquired what is thought to be the only glass harmonica in Australia, and Donizetti’s ‘mad scene’ will be just the beginning of a startling yet beautiful passage through a fragile sound world of glass.

Fractured Again will also feature musical instruments made of glass by installation artist Elaine Miles. Elaine has worked extensively with glass together with Eugene Ughetti in the Glass Percussion Project to create visually beautiful and sonically striking environments. For Ensemble Offspring, Elaine has created large panels of glass that will be performed as exotic instruments as well as projection surfaces that are illuminated with interactive video created by Andrew Wholley. The unique acoustic sound of glass will be augmented by electronic music by Pimmon and fused with live violin, clarinet and percussion by Ensemble Offspring members Claire Edwardes, James Cuddeford and Jason Noble.

Presented for the Sydney Festival.

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“…magnificent gong-like instruments made of glass that sounded like all the bells of Venice heard through a deep mist”

Sydney Morning Herald