★★★★½ Definitive performances prove madness can be catching.

Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium
October 5, 2016

The fledgling Verbrugghen Ensemble’s inaugural season may have flown somewhat under the radar (this was my first encounter with them this year), but on paper they are an impressive lot. A line up of Sydney’s finest, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s ensemble in residence is a veritable supergroup that includes a plethora of Sydney Conservatorium of Music performance teachers and Sydney Symphony Orchestra Principals – names like Concertmaster Andrew Haveron, Roger Benedict on viola, Umberto Clerici on cello, Alexandre Oguey on Cor Anglais, Francesco Celata, Scott Kinmont – the list goes on. Led by inspirational American conductor and Australian resident John Lynch, this concert of two rare overseas 20th-century masterpieces and an Aussie world premiere proved not just the excellence of ensemble playing, but also the breadth of imagination the Verbrugghens are capable of bringing to a programme.

Matthew Hindson’s This Year’s Apocalypse was the premiere, a work inspired by ideas of global catastrophe so prevalent in our emotionally volatile society today. According to the composer, he has “graphed the numbers of nuclear weapons on the planet combined with the number of HIV infections across...