Claire Edwardes

Artist in Residence 2019

To say she is virtuosic is redundant; she’s more, transforming what must clearly look promising on manuscript paper into sonorous, shimmering aural opulence.
Australian Stage

Internationally acclaimed percussion soloist, chamber musician and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, Claire Edwardes has been described by the press as a ‘sorceress of percussion’ performing with ‘spellbinding intensity’ and ‘graceful virtuosity’. Her award-winning performances combine a theatrical energy with charismatic and original interpretations bringing to life the varied array of music she performs.

Graduating as Student of the Year in 1997 from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where Daryl Pratt was her teacher, she went on to win the coveted Symphony Australia Young Performers Award in 1999. She subsequently relocated to the Netherlands to undertake a Masters Degree at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories under Richard Jansen, Peter Prommel and Jan Pustjens.

Resident there for seven years, she was the recipient of many international awards and prizes including first place at the 2000 Tromp Percussion Competition and 2001 Llangollen International Instrumentalist. Claire was the 2005 MCA/Freedman Fellow and she is the three-time winner (2016, 2012, 2007) of the APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Individual for her contribution to Australian music. In 2014 she was granted a prestigious Australia Council Music Fellowship and in 2016 Ensemble Offspring won the APRA Art Music Award for Excellence by an Organisation.

Claire has performed concertos with all of the Australian orchestras as well as numerous European orchestras and has premiered works by an array of composers worldwide such as Harrison Birtwistle, Nicole Lizée, Elena Kats-Chernin and Christopher Fox. In her role as Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring she programs and performs to the highest level, some of the most innovative and cutting-edge music being presented in the world today. Claire is endorsed by Vic Firth and Adams Percussion. She teaches percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and maintains a busy concert schedule throughout Australia and abroad.

This page was last updated in November 2020.