ELISION is Australia’s premier new music ensemble. ELISION has focused increasingly on pushing physical boundaries in search of certain kinds of visceral expressive experiences, the musical body in extremis being a benchmark of the ensemble’s repertoire. In a digitised world where physical presence is frequently replaced by avatars generating enormously complex effects, ELISION continues to be fascinated by an artisanal and intimately gestural approach to the production of music- the co-creative processes of dialogue with composers, in which musicians imagine, develop and build new technical and expressive means.
With over fifty international tours to twenty-three different countries ELISION has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the National Concert Hall of Taipei, Pompidou Centre, Konzerthaus Berlin, Sydney Opera House, the Melbourne Recital Centre, and Vienna Konzerthaus; and at festivals such as Wien Modern, Maerzmusik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Festival Ars Musica of Brussels, Züricher TheaterSpektakel, the 50th Warsaw Autumn Festival, Ultima Oslo, TRANSIT Festival Leuven, Spitalfields London, the Chekov International Theatre Festival of Moscow, BIFEM, the Shanghai New Music Week, Festival Vértice of Mexico, Muzik Biennale Zagreb, the festivals of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane, and the Festival d’Automne à Paris.
Notable ELISION achievements include participation with First Nations artists, Nardi Simpson and Brenda Gifford, as part of the Liza Lim Australian Research Council Laureate to examine multi-species justice and ecological concerns surrounding climate change, and the recent joint performance of a major Turgut Erçetin work with the SWR Orchestra at the ECLAT Festival of Stuttgart. ELISION has produced eleven seasons of contemporary opera from composer Liza Lim with performances at the Opéra National de Paris, Hebbel Theatre Berlin and the Saitama Arts Theatre of Japan; and five major cycles from Richard Barrett, also including CONSTRUCTION - a two-hour cycle commissioned by the European Capital of Culture programme; ELISION has commissioned over 800 new works, working in research and educational partnerships with ANAM and RMIT, as well as having enjoyed several residencies at Harvard and Stanford Universities USA and a strong and significant relationship with CeReNeM, Huddersfield University UK.
Significant cross- disciplinary collaborations include work with visual artists Heri Dono (Indonesia), Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (Thailand), Australians Justine Cooper, Judith Wright, Domenico deClario and Indigenous Australian visual artists Judy Watson and Dr Lilla Watson. In theatre ELISION has worked with directors Barrie Kosky, Michael Kantor, and David Pledger.
The group’s discography now extends to twenty-five compact discs including recordings made at the Deutschlandfunk, WDR, Radio Bremen and BBC Maida Vale Studios for release on HCR, Kairos, NEOS, NMC and Mode, reviewed to acclaim in Gramophone, The Wire, New York Times, the Sunday Times and BBC Music Magazine.
AARON CASSIDY
27. Juni 2009 (2021) for E♭ clarinet
EINAR TORDI EINARSSON
Zone of proximity: (and the weakly interacting particles) (2023) for recorder and violoncello
EVAN JOHNSON
Contemptus Mundi (2021) for clarinet in C and piano
RICHARD BARRETT
instar (2015-16) for soprano recorder
LIZA LIM
Ghosts make form (2024) for violoncello and piano