Nurturing Australian Artists
Hatched Academy
What is Hatched Academy?
Established in 2014 to support exceptional young Australian performers and composers, Ensemble Offspring’s Hatched Academy has evolved to include three streams: the Composer Intensive (formerly Composer Summer School), where six emerging Australian composers are mentored by guest composers throughout the year with the ensemble in residence for a week; the Associate Artist position for an elite instrumentalist to perform alongside the ensemble for the year and create a unique project supported by the ensemble’s experience and resources, and the Mentorship Program (formerly Home Academy), offering one-on-one online mentorships for young musicians all over Australia.
In 2022, acclaimed composer Brett Dean became the Hatched Academy Lead Mentor. To learn more about Hatched Summer School, watch this short video and to get a feel for the experience, read participant testimonials here.
Streams
Hatched Associate Artist
Each year an elite instrumentalist who demonstrates a true passion for art music is selected to join Ensemble Offspring for solo and chamber music performances throughout our annual concert season. Applications open each year in July and are announced in early September of the year prior. The experience of being Ensemble Offspring’s Hatched Associate Artist provides a unique opportunity to build a successful performance career specialising in living new music and sculpting ones own musical pathway. Our Hatched Associate Artist is paid professional performance fees, travel costs are covered
for interstate artists. Creative and business mentorship is provided by our core musicians, as well as external mentors selected by the Associate Artist. Watch this short video to get a feel for the experience.
“Hatched Academy was a great opportunity to experience a comprehensive overview of what it’s like to be a freelance artist in an ensemble setting – basically synthesising that knowledge into a package to take back with me when I pursue my own things.” – Jacob Abela (piano), 2015 Hatched Associate Artist
Applications for Hatched Associate Artist 2024 will open from 1-31 July 2023.
Apply now!
Hatched Composer Intensive
Our Hatched Composer Intensive brings together six emerging composers from around Australia for an intensive week of workshops with Ensemble Offspring’s core musicians, industry specialists and a guest mentor composer, culminating in a professionally documented showcase concert of the composers’ new works. Hatched Composer Intensive offers composers the opportunity to have their music workshopped by some of Australia’s finest chamber musicians with years of experience working with composers of all ages. Feedback is delivered in a warm, honest and constructive manner and composers are supported in their plight to create the most idiomatic and effective chamber work possible.
Throughout the week the participants are also given the opportunity to discuss and share ideas with mentorship in programming, funding, marketing, audience engagement, First Nations protocols and provided with important industry contacts. Open to emerging composers of all ages. In 2022, Hatched Composer Intensive will take place in residence at the CORRIDOR project (Cowra) in November. Check out the 2021 videos and read the testimonials to get a feel for the experience.
Applications for Hatched Composer Intensive 2023 will open from 1-31 March 2023.
Hatched Mentorship Program
Hatched Mentorship Program consists of one-on-one Zoom mentoring sessions (2 per successful candidate) with Ensemble Offspring’s musicians and collaborating composers, who generously share their experience in instrumental or composition lessons as well as industry, marketing and grant writing advice. Hatched Mentorship Program occurs throughout the month of July and is open to participants of all ages from metropolitan and regional Australia.
In 2022, the performer mentors are Claire Edwardes (percussion), Jason Noble (clarinet), Lamorna Nightingale (flute), Véronique Serret (violin), Blair Harris (cello), Ben Kopp (piano), Roland Peelman (conducting), Andrew Blanch (guitar) & Emily Granger (harp). This year’s composer mentors are Tristan Coelho, Kate Neal, Jack Symonds, Fiona Hill & Michael Norris.
Applications for Hatched Mentorship Program 2023 will open from 1-31 March 2023.
Mentors
2021-22 Mentor: Tristan Coelho
Tristan Coelho is an award-winning Sydney-based composer who specialises in concert music and film projects. His music draws inspiration largely from either nature, especially the idea of amplifying otherwise soft and delicate sounds, or our digital, data-driven world.
Project highlights include Rhythm City toured by Zubin Kanga in 2019; Smell of the Earth performed by Tambuco Percussion; read/write error commissioned by Ensemble Offspring and finalist in the APRA Art Music Awards; A line is a dot premiered by Claire Edwardes; and an interactive music soundscape walk inspired by the local surrounds of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains.
As an active music educator, Tristan has written numerous works for student ensembles and runs creative music workshops around Sydney. He has recently completed a new music education project in collaboration with flautist Lamorna Nightingale titled Other Voices, designed to enhance students’ composition, songwriting and music technology skills.
2019-20 Mentor: Kate Neal
Kate Neal is an artist with over 20 years experience as a composer, arranger, teacher, artistic director and collaborator. Her artistic practice has earned scholarships from the Dutch Government (1998), Accademia Musicale Chigiana (2005), and the Hephzibah Tintner Fellowship (2006), among others, and Neal has enjoyed working as an orchestrator and arranger for many pop and rock bands, feature and independent films, and choreographers and dance companies.
From 2004-2007 she worked as a sessional composition teacher and also lectured in Music and Image at the Victorian College of the Arts, and since 2006 she has been incorporating extra-musical parameters within the notation of a musical score, such as physical gesture, design, light and choreography. In many cases, these works provide a variety of unprecedented collisions of unlikely visual and musical cues. From 2009-2013 Neal was a Graduate Fellow at Princeton University in the USA. In 2013 Neal returned from the US to take a one-year position as Composer in Residence for the Four Winds Festival. In 2015/16 Neal was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship, allowing her to compose six substantial new works over two years.
2019 Mentor: Ken Thomson
2018 Mentors: Matthew Shlomowitz, Cathy Milliken & Amanda Cole
Matthew Shlomowitz teaches at University of Southampton, co-directs Plus Minus Ensemble with Mark Knoop and Vicky Wright; and runs the podcast Soundmaking with Håkon Stene.
Cathy Milliken won international recognition as a leading composer, creative director, performer and educational program consultant. Cathy has devised and composed works for theatre, opera, choir, orchestra, chamber ensembles radio and film, and created installations, and was Composer in Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra from 2018-2020.
Amanda Cole is a composer of instrumental and electronic New Music. Her compositions feature microtonal structures, overtones, interference beats and fusions of electronic and acoustic timbres. Amanda has a Bachelor of Music (Hons.1) and a PhD in Composition from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she is now a sessional lecturer in composition.
Participants
2022 Hatched Academy Participants
Associate Artist: Eliza Shephard (flute, VIC)
Composer Intensive Participants: Lewis Mosley (NSW), Ceridwen McCooey (VIC), Andrea Guterres (NSW), Sean Quinn (VIC), May Lyon (VIC) and Alexander Voltz (QLD).
Home Academy Mentorships: Brent Keogh (composer, NSW), Katia Geha (composer, NSW), Robert McIntyre (composer, VIC), Paul Nicolaou (harp/composer NSW), Julia Vlahogiannis (composer, NSW), Rob Hao (piano/composer, NSW), Claire Litwinowicz (violin, QLD), Courtney Cousins (composer, NSW), Michelle St Anne (theatre artist/composer, NSW), Tilly Jones (composer, NSW), Ronan Apcar (piano, ACT), Mitch Brown (composer, NSW), Jaidyn Chong (composer, QLD), Naomi Dodd (composer, NSW), Isabella Rahme (composer, NSW) and Samantha Raftery (composer, SA).
2020 Hatched Academy Participants
Associate Artist: Will Hansen (double bass, NSW)
Summer School Composers: Christine Pan (NSW), Rhys Little (NSW), Connor D’Netto (QLD), Andrew Chen (VIC), James Hazel (NSW), Monica Lim VIC). The 2020 mentor is Kate Neal. Listen on Soundcloud
Hatched Home Commission: Simon Charles (WA)
Home Academy Mentorships: Eduardo Ruiz (VIC), Liam Wooding (VIC), Nick Ashwood (NSW), Phoebe Bognàr (NSW), Katherine Howarth (NSW), Nadia Burgess (NSW), Gabrielle Cadenhead (NSW), Lily Bryant (ACT), Christopher Healey (VIC), Anna Rabinowicz (VIC), Liam Mulligan (NSW), Marlene Radice (ACT), Robert McIntyre (VIC), Ellie Harrison (QLD), Abigail Sutherland (SA), Tim Newhouse (WA)
Open Mic: JACHLO: Jacques Emery (double bass) & Chloe Kim (drum kit)