The usually hyper-articulate Claire Edwardes, Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring, was a little stuck for words as she greeted the audience for Whirling and Turning, the first concert of Listen Up!, a “micro-festival of living new music“. So many notes, so much complexity in this tight hour of modernist mind-bogglers took this elite band – and their faithful listeners – to their limits.

Listen Up! festival

Listen Up!, Ensemble Offspring, 2022. Photo © Jared Underwood

No wonder, then, that language began to fail at this point. But, as the music demonstrated, failure itself can be fascinating. Tristan Coelho’s read/write error, for example, zooms in on technology’s incidental noises. Other fascinating failures included Edwardes’ bowing out of one work altogether, which meant subbing in one of her students, a very brilliant Gabriel Fisher, to give the Australian premiere of Karlo Margetić’s Bricks and Mortar. This work, for violin, cello and percussion, begins like an exhibition of sounds, curated with delicate curiosity, before evolving into rich slices of sonic groove.

Then there was the on-again off-again development of Kate Neal’s Wound. Originally commissioned as hybrid collaboration incorporating dance and electronics, a COVID-driven remodelling resulted in a gripping portrayal of...