Ensemble Offspring and Melbourne’s Speak Percussion team up for the very first time with maverick composer-inventor Jon Rose in the world premiere of an artistic exploration of Australia’s iconic Ghan railway. Ghan Tracks mashes video projections and electronics with live performance on pedal powered zither, electric cement mixer, wind machine, piccolo, bass clarinet, sousaphone, double bass, quartet tone vibraphones and two actors into a bizarre and moving documentary-like spectacle.

“What I appreciate most is the delicacy in the use of film, a rhythmic/visual intervention appearing and disappearing in and out of score as do the instruments themselves…The Ghan is less a radical take on the world around us than a reminder of the constancies of the battle between us and the environment, but yes, a cautionary tale (as Rose would have it) on how we may lay tracks into our future.”

Zsuzsanna Soboslay, RealTime Arts