Ensemble Offspring presents
SONGBIRDS
The Twyford – Theatre venue
3.00pm Sunday 30 November 2025
- Length: 80 minutes (no interval)
- Allocated tiered seating – contact our Box Office on 0421 199910 or email info@thetwyford.com.au for Row J accessible seating & wheelchair space bookings.
- Suitable for all ages
- Genre: Contemporary classical
TICKETS
- Adults $55 | Concession $44 | Under 18s $22 plus BF (2.5% + 50c)
- Twyford Subscribers: $5 discount – check your e-news for your discount promo code
- Twyford Gift Certificates are valid for this event
ABOUT SONGBIRDS
Songbirds celebrates the breathtaking virtuosity of Australian birdsong with an array of original Australian chamber works commissioned by Ensemble Offspring. Be transported into the Australian bush by the familiar sounds of nature’s own musicians, with a little help from Australia’s leading composers.
After devoting her life to documenting pied butcherbird song in Central Australia, Hollis Taylor composed her trio Bitter Springs Creek 2014, pairing live instrumentalists with ancient bird sounds. Fiona Loader’s Lorikeet Corroboree follows an upbeat journey which interweaves the chatter of rainbow lorikeets with the sounds of ground-dwelling composers – including fragments from Papageno’s Magic Flute and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. Gerard Brophy makes flamingos dance and hummingbirds buzz in his three-movement tour-de-force Beautiful Birds.
First Nations composers Nardi Simpson and Brenda Gifford share Indigenous perspectives on the sky and its many inhabitants. Brenda Gifford’s Mungala (Clouds) evokes clouds building across the sea, while Nardi Simpson’s Of Stars and Birds interprets a significant Yuwaalaraay story about the creation of the southern cross.
Performed by Lamorna Nightingale (flutes), Jason Noble (clarinets) and Claire Edwardes (percussion), Songbirds captures the magical bird calls of the red centre, virtuosic avian displays and Indigenous musical perspectives on these beguiling creatures of the sky.
ABOUT ENSEMBLE OFFSPRING
Ensemble Offspring is Australia’s leading new music group. Under the leadership of internationally acclaimed percussionist Claire Edwardes OAM, they are Australia’s foremost champions of contemporary classical music. The group has commissioned and premiered over 350 new works and has toured First Nations music and new commissions world wide. Their dedication to excellence and amplifying underrepresented voices has earned them a Myer Award, multiple APRA Art Music Awards and two ARIA nominations. Through their pioneering spirit and relentless commitment to equity, Ensemble Offspring shape a vibrant and diverse artistic future for new Australian classical music.
Internationally acclaimed percussionist and Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes OAM has been described by the press as a ‘sorceress of percussion’. Claire won the 1999 Young Performers Award and completed her Masters degree at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories. She is the only Australian to win four APRA Art Music Luminary Awards and is the 2023 recipient of the Australian Women in Music Creative Leadership Award for her championing of female voices in music. Recent career highlights include the world premiere of Anne Cawrse’s marimba concerto written for her and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and solo performances at MONA, MRC and Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival and AFCM. Claire has been with Ensemble Offspring since our foundation in 1995.
Lamorna Nightingale’s transformative contribution to new Australian music spans many recordings and performances, the presentation of unique concerts experiences, and multiple pedagogical volumes published via her company, Fluteworthy. In 2017 Lamorna started BackStage Music, a concert platform that nurtures the grassroots of creative art music in Australia through collaboration of musicians of diverse backgrounds, career stages and genres. Lamorna joined Ensemble Offspring in 2007.
Jason Noble is one of Australia’s most adaptable clarinettists, spanning the classical to experimental and improvisatory genres. A core member of Ensemble Offspring for over 20 years, Jason has performed at contemporary music festivals from Warsaw to London and throughout Australia. His album releases THRUM (2020) and Chi’s Cakewalk (2017) feature new Australian clarinet work reflecting his collaborations with established and emerging composers. As 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. Jason joined Ensemble Offspring in 1999.
REVIEWS
“…the musicians joined the contrapuntal web, matching the avian virtuosity with their own” – The Sydney Morning Herald
“Ensemble Offspring played Gerard Brophy’s rhythmically demanding Beautiful Birds with precision and élan.” – The Sydney Morning Herald
“Edwardes’ solo percussion work Screechers & Sorrows featured chirps and echoes from the waterphone, an instrument of metal spikes protruding from a water-filled disk which creates eerie resonance of surprising depth.” – The Sydney Morning Herald
“A highly successful interspecies collaboration!” – ClassikON
“Stunning…Songbirds is an album of splendid, thought-provoking and evocative new music.” – Helen Musa, City News
“These avian studies are fascinating and immersive.” – Jessie Cunniffe, The Sydney Morning Herald
“A beautifully conceived and richly rewarding album” – Lisa MacKinney, Limelight
“… an injection of warmth and colour with new and recent pieces influenced by, and depicting, birdsong and nature all expertly played with energy and commitment.” – Roger Heaton, Tempo Magazine
“It would be impossible to imagine an ensemble better able to play and relate to this music than Ensemble Offspring, that crack band of Sydney musicians led by the extraordinary percussionist Claire Edwardes. Their performance never faltered, it was startling, energised and energising, delivered with extraordinary panache and almost clinical precision.” – Vincent Plush, Limelight
“Replete with ideas, feelings, and sensory experiences – and most importantly, it was fun.” – CutCommon
“Ensemble Offspring just oozes personality. A lot of groups can play at a high level. What makes Offspring really special is that after a concert, you feel like you know each and every one of them personally. They are a real band.” – David Dramm, composer
“Rarely do you hear an ensemble that knows how to create a piece so pure, so tight and with such an incredible sense of timing.” – NMZ Online, Berlin
“I could continue listing milestones…but when it comes to championing new music, Ensemble Offspring walks the walk.” – Mark Bosch, CutCommon