Richard Cilli

Dancer and choreographer Richard Cilli has performed the work of renowned Australian and international choreographers, including Anouk van Dijk, Gideon Obarzanek, William Forsythe, Lucy Guerin, Rafael Bonachela, Alexander Ekman, Jacopo Godani, Emanuel Gat, Kenneth Kvarnström, Alexander Whitley, Gabrielle Nankivell and Kristina Chan.

He trained at STEPS Youth Dance Company, and then the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, graduating as Most Outstanding Student. Cilli joined Sydney Dance Company in 2009. He won the Helpmann award for Best Male Dancer in 2010 for his performance in Rafael Bonachela’s we unfold. He has been a member of Sydney Dance Company, K.Kvarnström & Co (Stockholm), Lucy Guerin Inc and Chunky Move.

As a choreographer Cilli has created work for Sydney Dance Company, The Australian Ballet, LINK Dance Company, and WAAPA, as well as independently produced work. Richard is a certified Countertechnique teacher, and continues to perform, teach and make work around Australia.

Claire Edwardes

Internationally acclaimed percussion soloist, chamber musician and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes has been described by the press as a ‘sorceress of percussion’ performing with ‘spellbinding intensity’ and ‘graceful virtuosity’. Her award-winning performances combine a theatrical energy with charismatic and original interpretations bringing to life the varied array of music she performs.

Graduating as Student of the Year in 1997 from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where Daryl Pratt was her teacher, she went on to win the coveted Symphony Australia Young Performers Award in 1999. She subsequently relocated to the Netherlands to undertake a Masters Degree at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories under Richard Jansen, Peter Prommel and Jan Pustjens.

Resident there for seven years, she was the recipient of many international awards and prizes including first place at the 2000 Tromp Percussion Competition and 2001 Llangollen International Instrumentalist. Claire was the 2005 MCA/Freedman Fellow and she is the three-time winner (2016, 2012, 2007) of the APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual for her contribution to Australian music. In 2014 she was granted a prestigious Australia Council Music Fellowship and in 2016 Ensemble Offspring won the APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Organisation.

Claire has performed concertos with all of the Australian orchestras as well as numerous European orchestras and has premiered works by an array of composers worldwide such as Harrison Birtwistle, Matthew Hindson, Elena Kats-Chernin and Matthew Shlomowitz. In her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring she programs and performs to the highest level, some of the most innovative and cutting-edge music being presented in the world today. Claire is endorsed by Mike Balter Mallets and Adams Percussion. She teaches percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and maintains a busy concert schedule throughout Australia and abroad.