The marketing material is all fluffy chicks and comfy nests, but don’t be fooled. Intrepid new music group Ensemble Offspring may be in the nurturing business but the fledglings in this, the first of an on-going mentoring scheme, appropriately monikered ‘Hatched’, are seriously talented youngsters. In this case the pair of musicians were Sydney-based composer and jazz saxophonist Jeremy Rose and Melbourne-based trumpeter Callum G’Froerer whose oeuvre apparently defies description. Artistic directors Damien Ricketson and Claire Edwardes have taken them under their capable wings for some in-depth tutoring, and this concert was the impressive fruit of their labours.

The opening perhaps was not entirely prepossessing. QUITT, derived from a colour drawing made in 1989 by Karlheinz Stockhausen, was not an easy piece to play and still more difficult to listen to. Starting from a unison held note, flute (the excellent Lamorna Nightingale), clarinet (equally inspiring Jason Noble) and trumpet (Callum G’Froerer) ascend microtonally to a high-pitched cacophony. It reminded me of rival birds in some kind of musical meeting game. The trumpet then loses its nerve and takes a hike into a corner of the stage where it apparently sulks for the remaining few minutes playing two notes in a...