Lyrebird Brass

Held over a single day at the National Film and Sound Archive, MOSSO: music in motion explores the relationship between music, the moving image and spatial sound.

The day kicks off with artist-in-residence Aaron Wyatt’s work Digital Echoes following which Lyrebird Brass fill the Courtyard and Foyer spaces with a series of ambitious contemporary Australian works including two world premieres.

Cathy Likhuta - Apex Predators
Elliott Gyger - In the Presence of So much Sky (World Premiere)
Nardi Simpson - Yulanbiirr
Kate Neal - Fanfare
Alice Humphries - Uncertain Meditations
Stuart Greenbaum - 15 Years On (World Premiere)

Tissages du Temps traces more than three centuries of French musical innovation, showing how each generation transcended the language of the one before while remaining deeply connected to its legacy.

The program opens with music from France’s early masters, heard here through the vibrant sonorities of Lyrebird Brass, Australia’s trailblazing brass ensemble. Their performance highlights the ceremonial brilliance, rhythmic finesse and expressive detail that defined a French Baroque musical identity.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Te Deum Prélude in D Major
François Couperin (arr. Bernard Hughes): Les Barricades Mystérieuses
Jean-Philippe Rameau (arr. Steven Verhlest): Dardanus Suite

Followed by performances by Ensemble Contrechamps, Kristian Chong, and Timothy Young

Récit des sensations fragiles (tales of fragile sensations), forms part of Jü rg Frey's intense and luminous late-period oeuvre, which has brought him growing international recognition in recent years. The New Yorker has described him as "one of the most distinct voices in contemporary music."

This new, nearly hour-long work, written for 18 instruments, once again evokes the vast, tranquil soundscapes that are the hallmark of Frey's style. It invites listeners into a space of quiet contemplation, a sound world that one reviewer described as "the most ravishing place on the planet during its placid unfolding."

Ensemble Contrechamps, in collaboration with Lyrebird Brass, will present this concert in an environment that enhances the meditative atmosphere. Don't miss your chance to experience Frey's music in this pristine acoustic.

Part of Australian National University's Australian and near-Pacific neighbours First Nations Composers Gathering. Performances of works be Leilehua Lanzilotti, Christopher Sainsbury, Nardi Simpson, Rhyan Clapham, and Troy Russell with Ensemble Three, Lyrebird Brass, and students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Lyrebird Brass team up with performance faculty from the Tianjin Juilliard School

Program to include:
Leonora Duarte (arr. Abby Black): Sinfonia No. 2
Cathy Likhuta: Apex Predators
Grace-Evangaline Mason: As Bronze
Victor Ewald: Quintet No. 1
Alice Humphries: Uncertain Meditations
Michael Tilson Thomas: Street Song

Program to include:
Leonora Duarte (arr. Abby Black): Sinfonia No. 2
Cathy Likhuta: Apex Predators
Grace-Evangaline Mason: As Bronze
Victor Ewald: Quintet No. 1
Alice Humphries: Uncertain Meditations
Michael Tilson Thomas: Street Song

Lyrebird brass with guest students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Lyrebird Brass teams up with teaching artists from the Tianjin Juilliard School for a concert of brass chamber music.

Lyrebird brass with guest students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Victor Ewald: Brass Quintet No. 1

Maria Grenfell: Creatures of Norse (World premiere)

Grace-Evangeline Mason: As Bronze ( Australian premiere)

Tilson Thomas:Street Song

Ricardo Molla Albero: Fanfare for a New Beginning
Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No 3
Hoagy Carmichael: Stardust
Sheridan Seyfried: Mad Jack’s Revenge
Jan Sandström (arr. Steven Verhelst): Sång till Lotta
Louisa Trewartha: Inspire
Duke Ellington arr. Juan Tizol: Ellington Medley
Anthony DiLorenzo: Of Kingdoms and Glory

Lyrebird Brass is delighted to be launching its new album, Tonnerre de Brass, at Tempo Rubato on 29 October. The program includes selections from the new album, which features world premiere recordings of mid-20th century brass trios by Belgian and French composers.

Lyrebird Brass present a program of exciting world premieres for brass quintet, including Book of Brass by GRAMMY award-winning composer Jennifer Higdon (co-commissioned with the American Brass Quintet), to the lighthouse by Linda Kouvaras, new canzoni by Alan Holley, and a new piece by Alice Humphries.

Cathy Likhuta - Apex Predators
Luke Styles - Solder
Kate Neal - Fanfare
Alan Holley - Dulwich Air
Andrew Batterham - Melbourne Mosaic

In their first post-lockdown concert, the Lyrebird Quintet will give the world premiere of Robert Cohen's Neptune's Treasures on a program that also includes the Divertimento by Harry Sdraulig, and Solder, a new work by London-based Luke Styles.

Although the COVID19 pandemic has put a global halt on the performing arts industry, Lyrebird Brass will be teaming up with the Melbourne Digital Concert hall for a live performance streamed from the Athenaeum Theatre on 19 June. Works will include the Andrew Batterham's Melbourne Mosaic (a Lyrebird Brass commission), Colchester Fantasy by Eric Ewazen, and tangos by Piazzolla.

Part of Australian National University's Australian and near-Pacific neighbours First Nations Composers Gathering. Performances of works be Leilehua Lanzilotti, Christopher Sainsbury, Nardi Simpson, Rhyan Clapham, and Troy Russell with Ensemble Three, Lyrebird Brass, and students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

To be released 16 August 2024 on Navona records: Lyrebird Brass's latest album, Book of Brass, featuring premiere recordings of works by Jennifer Higdon, Grace-Evangeline Mason, Kate Neal, Alice Humphries, and Alan Holley.

Lyrebird Brass have released an album of brass trios — all previously unrecorded — by mid-20th century Belgian and French composers. Tonnerre de Brass includes works by Lucie Vellere, Georges Barboteu, Marius Flothuis, Frits Celis, Mathieu Debaar, and Arthur Meulemans.

Lyrebird Brass's debut album, Apex Predators, includes works by Australian composers or written in tribute to Australia and its inhabitants. The title is not only apt for featuring the premiere recording of Catherine Likhuta’s work of the same name, but also because the ensemble's home country hosts many of the world’s deadliest creatures.

In celebration of 2022 International Women’s Day, I recorded a performance of Lucie Vellère's beautifully lyrical “Deux Essais” (1965) with my friends and colleagues Carla Blackwood and Don Immel. The piece exploits the versatility of the three instruments, moving from warm, velvety textures in the first movement to frenetic, bouncy passages in the second.

Lyrebird Brass has teamed up with the American Brass Quintet to co-comission a new work by GRAMMY and Pulitzer Prize award winning composer, Jennifer Higdon. The new work will receive its premiere performances in New York and Melbourne in late 2022.

We're please to announce a number of commissions, including new works for 2022 from Melbourne's own Linda Kouvaras and Alice Humphries. Details about the works and their premieres are forthcoming.

We are delighted to be the dedicees to a new piece by New York-based composer Robert Cohen. Neptune's Treasures is a four movement work musical exploration of the Great Barrier Reef. The first movement depicts the descent into the depths of the ocean in a bathyscaphe upon which a myriad of aquatic life living in and around the reef is encountered in the second movement. The third movement is a lament to the what is thought by many to be one of the world's ugliest creatures, the Blobfish. The final movement is the composer's take on the process by which many believe life began, culminating with the rise from the deep of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, who implores us to respect his kingdom.