The inspiration for Ensemble Offspring’s Lone Hemispheres concert came from one of the new music group’s long-time supporters, Don MacLeod, who has been lobbying Artistic Director and percussionist Claire Edwardes for “more Xenakis”. Edwardes delivered at Carriageworks on Tuesday night – along with pianist Zubin Kanga and violinist Véronique Serret, in EO’s penultimate concert for the year, pairing three of the 20th-century master’s work with three new Australian works for (more or less) the same forces.

The first half of the concert was given over to the Australians, with the world premiere of Michael Smetanin’s crystalline Four Angels for solo piano opening proceedings. Kanga brought a shimmering lustre to the work (which is dedicated Smetanin’s wife, mother and two daughters) hauntingly offset by the instrument’s lowest octave and a half prepared with rubber erasers, a resonant bass pizzicati.

Véronique Serret. Photo: supplied

Cathy Milliken’s Crie for violin and solo voice – both performed by Serret – takes its title from the French word to cry out, and is a response in part to the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia last year, dedicated “to brave women such as Daphne Caruana Galizia,...