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Adams Musical Instruments - Together in Music

Claire Edwardes

Claire Edwardes is recognised throughout the world as one of the most striking and important percussionists of her generation. Graduating as Student of the Year in 1997 from the Sydney Conservatorium (under Daryl Pratt), she went on to win the coveted ABC Young Performers Award in 1999 and subsequently relocated to the Netherlands to undertake a Masters Degree at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories (under Richard Jansen and Peter Prommel).

Resident there for seven years, she was the recipient of many international awards and prizes including first place at the Tromp Percussion Competition (2000) and Llangollen International Instrumentalist (2001). Claire was the 2005 MCA/Freedman Fellow and she is the two time winner (2007/2012) of the AMC/APRA Art Music Award for Excellence for her contribution to Australian Music.

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, Matthew Hindson, Elena Kats-Chernin and James Wood. She relishes her collaborations with such musicians as Bernadette Harvey (piano), William Barton (didgeridoo), Niels Meliefste (percussion), Sarah Oates (violin) and Viney/Grinberg Piano Duo.
She is the co-artistic director and percussionist of Australia’s foremost new music group, Ensemble Offspring (2011 winner Art Music Award for Best Performance). As such she programs and performs to the highest level, some of the most innovative and cutting-edge music being presented in the world today. Claire’s CD catalogue includes three solo albums with Tall Poppies including her June 2013 release ONE (as well as Flash & Coil), The Axe Manual on the Metronome Label, Hush Volume 8 and numerous composer based albums on Move Records, ABC Classics and Curious Noise. Claire is endorsed by Mike Balter Mallets and teaches Percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She currently balances her life as a mother of two young girls with a busy concert schedule Australia and abroad. Claire plays Adams Musical Instruments.