Omega Ensemble’s 2027 season is subtitled Risk & Radiance, and there’s certainly something glowing in what the contemporary chamber music organisation is planning to serve up next year.

Packed into five programs, there are three tours (including a debut at UKARIA and Carriageworks), six world premieres, two international guest stars and the first entry in a brand new, cutting edge series, and Artistic Director David Rowden feels passionate about every one, he says.

Omega Ensemble. Photo © Keith Saunders

“I wanted this season to capture the curiosity and ambition at the heart of Omega,” said Rowden. “We’re bringing remarkable musicians together, championing new works and exploring artistic partnerships that open up exciting possibilities. I can’t wait to share them with audiences in some of Australia’s finest concert halls.”

Revival & Reinvention opens the season on 13–16 March, with Mendelssohn’s Octet as its centrepiece. Omega reinforces its numbers with Melbourne-based ensemble Affinity Quartet in a program that also features a piano and strings arrangement of Caroline Shaw’s Harpsichord Concerto and Gordon Kerry’s Clarinet Quintet. Rowden, to whom the Kerry work is dedicated, will perform it in concert for the first time (after premiering the work via livestream in 2020).

Internationally renowned composer Nico Muhly joins Omega as curator for Future Pulse, the inaugural concert in a brand new series centrede around modern musical innovation. In collaboration with Carriageworks (an Omega debut), the first program strings together works by American composer Bryce Dessner with works from Alex Turley and Angus Davison, both alumni of Omega’s CoLAB, with more to be announced.

CoLAB, its program for emerging composers, returns in 2027 with a new cohort – Adriel Sukkumar, Alex Maltas, Frankie Dyson Reilly and Meta Cohen. The four will develop a brand new work for the ensemble over nine months with the guidence of mentors including Dessner, Christopher Cerrone and Elena Kats-Chernin, with the works to premiere in its New Now program on 12 August.

David Rowden and James Morrison. Photo © Keith Saunders

Trumpeter James Morrison is guest performer for Rhapsody in Blue, 15–23 September. Alongside Morrison’s survey of jazz music, the program also features a new arrangement of Gershwin’s work by CoLAB alum Andrew Howes for Omega’s pianist, Vatche Jambazian.

Truth Seekers, Lovers & Warriors closes out the year in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (Omega’s first foray to UKARIA) across 17–20 November. Oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros, percussionist James Tawadros and Omega band together for a program that spans Middle Eastern and contemporary classical music with a major new commissioned work for Omega and Tawadros’s oud.

“We can’t wait to work with the Omega Ensemble in 2027 sharing beautiful music that traverses Middle Eastern musical traditions and contemporary chamber music,” said Joseph.

More about Omega Ensemble’s 2027 season can be found here.