Ensemble Offspring | Avant Gardens Autumn
10 May, 2026, Hurlstone Park, NSW
On Sunday evening, Ensemble Offspring presented their “Avant Gardens Autumn” concert, a part of their long-running series of intimate chamber concerts, away from the concert hall to the back gardens and patios of the Ensemble’s passionate supporters. A delightful atmosphere was set by the songbirds of the dusk and the gentle breeze through the gum trees above us. Artistic Director Claire Edwardes set up the program as a play of extremes: improvised and notated music, virtuosic and sparse music, but also instrumental and natural sounds, all of which were in a healthy back and forth. The ensemble, comprised of Lamorna Nightingale on Flutes, Benjamin Ward on Double Bass, and Niki Johnson on Percussion, brought us along on a compelling journey that balanced global with focused listening, as well as instrumental artistry with natural harmony.
This theme was perfectly established in the opening of the concert, beginning with the music of Pauline Oliveros. Niki Johnson and Lamorna Nightingale invited the audience to participate in Oliveros’ famous “Tuning Meditation”, whereby all participants begin by breathing in and, upon exhaling, humming or singing any pitch, before re-entering with a pitch they hear being sung by another, or with a new pitch all their own. This began the evening with the most tender murmur of gentle chorales, feeling far off into the distance yet still unifying the audience to receive the remainder of the programme. At the first point of stillness, the gentle hush of the wind propelled the trio into Oliveros’ Wind Horse, featuring delicately bowed waterphone textures, coloured by glacial flute tone and double bass circular bowing.
Johnson and Ward then moved straight into Kaija Saariaho’s Ciel étoilé, for double bass and percussion. As Johnson introduced the piece as every bar being its own star in the sky, the duo pulled the most delicate subtleties out of every single note, with rich combinations of pizzicato harmonics and bowed crotales evoking the same glimmer when gazing at the night sky with a squinted glance. A piece that patiently imbues entire worlds in single, isolated gestures, the audience could appreciate the individual impulses that created the soundscapes that began the evening.
A highlight of the evening was the performance of Anthony Braxton’s work for Flute and Double Bass, Composition no. 152. A typically challenging work of Braxton’s, the piece provided a satisfying contrast to the textural exploration of the previous two works, featuring intricate rhythmic passages and disjointed melodic leaps, setting the stage for equally labyrinthine improvisations. Nightingale and Ward straddled knotty routes of notation before swiftly widening the curtains to riveting improvisations between the bass flute and double bass, broadening the scope of the notated material. Nightingale’s dark, breathy tone only enhanced the urgency with which she confronted both improvised interludes and notated preludes. Equally matched was Ward’s musings on deep, wheezing double-stopped drones, stretching out the pitches that seemed to zip by to shimmering overtones.
The evening reached its halfway point with an original work of Niki Johnson’s for solo vibraphone entitled, Under Ocean’s Skin. Described as a simple, unadorned ode to the ocean,
Johnson took us on a stunning journey both above and beyond the waves, brilliantly using the vibraphone motor at a variety of speeds to conjure wholly contrasting soundworlds. Lulling us with gently undulating chords allowed to gently fade away, we were quickly thrust into a delightfully disorienting spree of free-flowing staccato, with the addition of an extremely fast motor blurring the clarity of attacks. Johnson created something between shimmering soundscapes and rapid virtuosic rhythms.
The program continued this exploration of unadorned sound worlds with Jane Stanley’s charming miniature Desert Rose. With Nightingale returning to the stage to join Johnson, the two nudged along tender pulsating long tones, colours and chords, beginning and ending as a warm embrace, just as the leaves above gave out a gentle exhalation.
Another highlight was Sofia Gubaidulina’s Eight Etudes for Double Bass, of which Benjamin Ward performed the 1st, 3rd, and 7th. Beginning with bowed melodic tangents and endless lines tangling with other lines, the second piece brought the sound of the bow down to its essence. An almost plaintive passage, exploring the wispy resonances of the upper register. As the piece reached near stillness, Ward quickly launched into the final piece, Pizzicato-Arco, honing in on far-reaching glissandi connected by pizzicato. With sharp, high pizzicatos and ringing harmonics, Ward effortlessly transports these gestures back to the bow, calmly winding down to the most fragile tones in the highest register of the instrument.
Closing out the programme, the trio gave the world premiere of Jack Symonds’ Releasing the Marble. In response to a song cycle of Symonds’ based on the poetry and writings of Michelangelo, this new work teased virtuosic melodic lines out of the proverbial “block of marble”. The opening sound of the entire piece won you over immediately: a single pulse, bowed crotales, double bass harmonics, and a perfectly balanced low hum on the bass flute. The trio quickly launched into an unrelenting smattering of virtuosity, with flashes of frenzied repeated notes and wide intervallic leaps. Nightingale stood out in this performance, effortlessly moving between bass flutes and piccolos, amidst an expertly woven tapestry of melodic fragments. Symonds maintains fantastic command over the polyphony of this work, brilliantly subverting the registral cliches of the instruments to great effect. A particularly dazzling section featured rapid piccolo attacks blended with clattering crotales, with each performer attempting to outmanoeuvre each other, yet always remaining tethered to the underlying rhythmic structure.
