Omega Ensemble has announced the four participants to take part in its 2023 CoLAB: Composer Accelerator Program.

Chosen from an unprecedented number of submissions, Natalie Nicolas, Ben Robinson, Andrew Howes and Naomi Dodd have been selected for the third year of the program and will work directly with Omega and compositional mentors to develop a chamber work over an eight month span. The works will debut at the Sydney Opera House in November at the ensemble’s New Now showcase.

This year’s mentors include Australian composers Carl Vine and Elena Kats-Chernin, and US-based composers Nico Muhly, Christopher Cerrone and Missy Mazzoli. 

Natalie Nicolas

Natalie Nicolas. Photo supplied.

A two-time winner of the Flinders Quartet Composition Competition, Nicolas is a rapidly-rising star in the field of Australian composition who noted that she is “thrilled to find new and novel ways to push the musicians’ abilities into places [she’s] not yet explored.”

She has been a participant in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ program and received a 50 Fanfares commission...