It wouldn’t be an Omega Ensemble gig without a world premiere, but the latest concert by the top Sydney chamber music group offered two of them, with the added bonus of a first Australian performance of British composer Thomas Adès’ gorgeous 2021 work Alchymia for clarinet and string quartet.

“Embrace the unexpected; celebrate the extraordinary” is the mantra of Artistic Director clarinetist David Rowden and his band, and that’s what we got with the four pieces on the program presented in The Neilson in Sydney’s Walsh Bay.

Adès delves into the Elizabethan world of alchemy for his work – performed here by Rowden with Véronique Serret and Ike See, violins, violist Neil Thompson and cellist Paul Stender. Four simple ideas or themes are transmuted into something hypnotic and compelling.

Omega Ensemble: Alchymia (Jaan Pallandi, centre). Photo © Billy Zammit

The first part references Shakespeare’s The Tempest with the king’s eyes being transformed by the sea into pearls. Next comes a Tudor popular song converted by William Byrd into a set of keyboard variations. This is followed by John Dowland’s lute song Lachrymae, which he then arranged for viol consort, and lastly variations...