Sat 2 May 2026

Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)

Omega Ensemble commissions and programs music from living composers at the cutting edge of what we call classical music. HOWL incorporates an array of electronics and stretches our ears and our imaginations, sometimes almost to breaking point. But isn’t that why we love the Omega Ensemble? With each work in the program we are asked to examine our concept of what actually is music? When does it stop being music and becomes something else? The crowd at the ACO on the Pier (an acoustically perfect, intimate venue) were here with that expectation, craving to have their preconceptions challenged. And they were not disappointed.

Violist Neil Thompson opened the program with a work for viola and electronics by Missy Mazzoli called Tooth and Nail. This was the oldest piece in the program composed in 2010. The electronics were created from viola samples – treated to sound like a jaw harp the composer heard being played in Uzbekistan. I, back then, like many teenagers my age, owned a jaw harp (or Jew’s harp as we called them) and I couldn’t recognise anything that sounded like that in this piece. From what I could tell, Thomspon was playing to a pre-recorded backing track, not manipulating the sound in real time.

The Australian premiere of Anna Meredith’s Tuggemo was next. The title derives from an Old English word for ‘swarm of birds’, or flies, and the piece emulates that sound, swooping and diving. It is scored for string quartet and electronics, again taking the sound world into unfamiliar extremes.

Daniel Wohl’s Interference Patterns was for me the most interesting work in the program. The strings played sounds evoking the display on an oscilloscope that morphed and fluctuated over time with a constantly evolving cadence and pitch. The sound being produced had an aesthetic beauty that belied the fact that that there was no discernible melody or harmony. The use of electronics was minimal but evident, until the final movement when I felt they had disappeared altogether.

After this piece, there were no more electronics in the score. What I noticed was, that up until then, the musicians were totally focused on the score and the music in their earpieces. There was no visible communication with each other. They were seemingly in fact slaves to the machine. The change to live instruments only, gave a sense of relaxed organics to the concert. The performers were making eye contact and visible physical signs of connection with each other (and the audience). Also at this point the lighting became static, whereas before it was constantly shifting in colour and direction. The audience response was also more organic and heartfelt. The question arises, does the inclusion of electronics make it less musical? Less natural? Less emotional? These require personal and subjective answers. To me, in the hands of expert musicians/technicians the difference should be minimal. And the Omega Ensemble are indeed experts not only on their instruments, but also of the technology.

Next, Pierre Jalbert’s Howl featured Artistic Director, David Rowden on clarinet and bass clarinet. This work was inspired by the poem of the same name by Allen Ginsberg, the long lines of the poetry in particular. The clarinet line included long arpeggio-like figures set against an array of string textures creating light and shade. The bass clarinet in the final movement shifted the harmonic focus of the music only to finish, after swapping back to a B♭ clarinet, on an impossibly high and quiet note disappearing into the ether.

Danny Elfman is a prolific Hollywood film composer (Edward Scissorhands and Men in Black to name just a few). Pianist Vatche Jambazian joined the ensemble for Elfman’s Piano Quartet. Jambazian’s dynamism was evident from the start, as he attacked the Steinway with exuberance (I’m sure the Steinway didn’t mind one bit). Melodically and harmonically the work did not resemble film music at all, but the drama was there in technicolour and surround sound. Violent outbursts of chords interspersed with extended silences spoke of cinematic scoring. The final movement began to sound familiar, and to this highly educated audience of modern music fans, there was more than one comment on the way out of the hall of the similarity to Shostakovich’s Piano Trio. Like Elfman, Shostakovich was a prolific film composer, so who better to emulate 100 years later. Or was it an intentional quote?

The loyal Omega crowd got what they came for and left sated. Their ears and minds were indeed stretched in delightful and unexpected ways, evident by the lively discussions as we filed out of the hall.