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Ensemble Offspring

Still Life with Avalanche

August 26 @ 5:00pm

Repetition, chaos and beauty become one in this program of musical extremes, where the greatest contemporary composers examine every aspect of our crazy lives – from love and death to reality TV.

Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint plucks rhythmic patterns from everyday life, with a transfixing impression of New York’s restless heartbeat. Beauty is found in both chaotic movement and stillness in Missy Mazzoli’s Still Life with Avalanche, and a new work by Australian Samantha Wolf explores our connection with reality TV. The recently passed and sorely missed Kaija Saariaho is remembered with a rendition of her colourful duet Oi Kuu.

To close the program, we’re thrilled to present a world premiere by Paul Dean. His new work the weight we carry was composed especially for the sextet, commissioned by Mark Wakely as the 2023 Steven Alward Memorial Music Commission. Taking inspiration from Allen Ginsberg’s poem Song, Dean’s work expresses the importance, burden and desperation of love.


$35 – $75 + $8.95 booking fee
Bennelong Point
Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia
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Details

Date & Time

August 26, 2023 | 2:00pm

August 26, 2023 | 5:00pm

Venue

Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House
Bennelong Point
Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia

Price

$35 – $75
+ $8.95 booking fee

Program

Missy Mazzoli – Still Life with Avalanche (2009)
flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion

Kaija Saariaho – Oi Kuu (1990)
bass flute, cello

Samantha Wolf – A rose is a rose is a ruse: A Bachelor’s Tale (Noisy Women Commission) (2023)
piccolo/flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion
World Premiere

Steve Reich – New York Counterpoint (1985, arr. 2022)
clarinet, tape

Paul Dean – the weight we carry (SAMM Commission) (2023)
piccolo/flute/alto flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion
World Premiere

Performers

Claire Edwardes (Artistic Director, percussion)
Lamorna Nightingale (flutes)
Jason Noble (clarinets)
Véronique Serret (violin)
Freya Schack-Arnott (cello)
Benjamin Kopp (piano)

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Still Life with Avalanche