Sydney Festival presents the Omega Ensemble performing Missy Mazzoli's Dark with Excessive Bright at ACO On The Pier, for its 2025 program.

“A spectacular edge-of-your-seat performance” —The Daily Telegraph

High energy, explosive dynamism, raw beauty. Omega Ensemble presents a program based around two contemporary masterworks – new but already audience favourites.

The title of Missy Mazzoli’s Grammy-nominated concerto comes from Milton’s Paradise Lost – an ‘impossible’ phrase, she says, that evokes the ‘dark but heartrending sound’ of the solo double bass. Drawing easily on influences from the Baroque to indie rock, this music slips from beautiful simplicity to pandemonium beyond recognition.

Samuel Adams (son of post-minimalist composer John Adams) represents a new generation in American music. His Lighthouse was commissioned by Omega Ensemble and received its world premiere in July 2024. It’s a striking work of light, shade and ever-increasing intensity – groundbreaking and mesmerising.

An Omega Ensemble concert embraces the unexpected and celebrates the extraordinary, and this Sydney Festival event will be no exception. 

PROGRAM TO INCLUDE

Missy Mazzoli Dark with Excessive Bright – Concerto for double bass and string quintet
Samuel Adams Lighthouse for clarinet, piano and string quintet