Earth, leaves, uglies

My last MOSSO performance, given a need for a break before a choral recording that evening.  Sadly I missed two final MOSSO concerts and they looking interesting but there are limits.  This was Ensemble Contrechamps performing four works by indigenous composers against the biggest TV screen of decent resolution that I've seen.  Compositions by Nardi Simpson, Nicole Smede, Aaron Wyatt and Davin Ojala touched on deeply unpleasant through to more positive portrayals of people in the land.  Much sounded with sparse movements as of earth and leaves, one had supremely ugly quotes from known persons in recent history, another moved with a lovely effective bass line, so considerable diversity from four composers.  All moved with background visuals, some more obviously aligned.  One spot had me stunned with a sax solo that displayed jazz chops, but mostly sax played tones; similarly one had a lovely moving bass part, and again mostly played more abstract parts.    

Ensemble Contrechamps comprised Thierry Debons (percussion), Pierre-Stephane Meuge (sax), Maximilian Haft (violin), Hans Egidi (viola), Martina Brodbeck (cello), Noelle Reymond Ruegg (bass), Susanna Peters (flute), Laurent Bruttin (clarinet) and Antoine Francoise (keyboard).  They performed music of Nardi Simpson, Nicole Smede, Aaron Wyatt and Davin Ojala at NFSA for MOSSO during CIMF2026.

Portraits

Between the two short sets of Lyrebird brass was a performance in the ARC Cinema of music of Fiona Hill, CIMF2026 composer-in-residence.  Why portraits?  Because the music accompanied visuals including a stunning dance work featuring ~14 performers from the Sydney Dance Company PPY (Pre-Professional Year), a sweeping drone footage of cliffs, seas, beaches, nature, and a final (live?) visual work with solo sax accompaniment.  Musicians included several of the several visiting featured groups and some local musicians making up the rank, in smaller and larger ensembles and that solo sax, as I remember all pitches, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano.

Music of Fiona Hill was performed by Ensemble Contrechamps and Australian String Quartet with Joshua Hyde (solo sax), Tim Wickham (violin), Samuel Payne (cello), Kyle Ramsey-Daniel (bass), Eugene Ughetti (percussion) and Fausto Brusamolino (artist).  The performed works were Circumstance, Sunyata and UnderOnBelow.  They performed in the ARC Cinema at NFSA for MOSSO during CIMF2026.