From the set of Play School to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Claire Edwardes OAM is Australia’s ‘sorceress of percussion’ (City News, Canberra). The only Australian to win the ‘APRA Art Music Luminary Award’ four times, Claire leaps between her role as Ensemble Offspring Artistic Director (2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award winners) and concerto performances with all the Australian and New Zealand orchestras plus several European orchestras.

Add her genre-spanning solo concerts, a broad spectrum of cross art form collaborations, commissioning and premiering hundreds of new works by Australian and international composers including Harrison Birtwistle, Louis Andriessen, Elena Kats-Chernin and Holly Harrison, teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music to passionately advocating for gender equity and diversity in classical music.

As a true trailblazer, perhaps her most significant contribution, beyond her endless quest for excellence in performance, is in breaking down the barriers between art music and audiences. With an on stage and behind the scenes infectious enthusiasm for bringing new music to unexpected places, she wows audiences with her unique performances on marimba, vibraphone, drums, percussion and more unusual instruments such as the waterphone and cajon. As recently described by The Age Claire is a ‘prodigiously talented Australian…an invigorating musical life force.’ 

Claire Edwardes’ appearance in the 2023 Brisbane Music Festival is supported by Cass George.