Kontiki Racket
Image: Peter Haines and Steve Jebb cooking up all sorts of community
This weekend Ensemble Offspring present their inaugural Kontiki Racket, a music festival extravaganza which brings new sounds from around the world to the Nest Creative Space, a brand new music venue for Sydney.
Claire Edwardes, Artistic Director of Ensemble Offspring, explained that Kontiki Racket was something they had been planning for “a couple of years” as they have always wanted to “start a little festival of our own” since their musical interests are so unique.
Bringing in artists from all around the country and the globe wasn’t something all that foreign to Ensemble Offspring, but the logistical aspects of doing so “within a short period of time” was challenging. Another vital aspect which proved to be quite difficult was finding a venue which meshed with their vision for the festival, luckily however they stumbled across the Nest Creative Space.
“[The venue] was recommended to us by colleagues and a few artists who used the space as a studio. When we visited though we realised it is a really awesome potential music venue, there’s a quite a large open space between all the studio spaces which are around the edges,” reflected Edwardes
Obviously using a brand new venue for an event of this nature meant shipping in a lot of lighting and sound equipment, but as Claire stressed: “it’s worth it because there is such a dearth of venue possibilities in Sydney and we’re really excited to show everyone this space, which is perfect for our music.”
Kontiki Racket will continue to push Ensemble Offspring’s mantra of showcasing the top local talent within a global context. In order to do this they have a number of their Hatched Academy graduates performing on the bill alongside internationally regarded musicians and composers.
“Of course we can’t take complete credit for these graduates, but we’ve contributed to their journey. So it’s lovely to see them blossom and have success professionally,” Edwardes glowed.
Unlike most music festivals, Kontiki Racket isn’t all about the performances though. Attendees also have the option of signing up for what Ensemble Offspring is calling “speed dating” sessions with new music leaders across film composition, curation, commissioning and collaborations. These sessions will give the participants the opportunity to engage with industry mentors one-on-one for fifteen minutes and have all of their questions answered.
Edwardes and the team at Ensemble Offspring are hopeful that with strong support this weekend they could potentially make Kontiki Racket “at least biennial if not annual” event. (JA)
Nov 12–13. Nest Creative Space, 298 Botany Rd, Alexandria. $35-$100+b.f. Tickets & info: http://tix.yt/kontikiracket
