Mitch Riley

GILGAMESH (world premiere) chamber opera in two acts SHOWREEL co-production of Sydney Chamber Opera, Opera Australia & Carriageworks in association with Australian String Quartet & Ensemble Offspring Music: Jack Symonds Libretto: Louis Garrick Conductor: Jack Symonds Director: Kip Williams Set Designer: Elizabeth Gadsby Costume Designer: David Fleischer Lighting Designer: Amelia Lever-Davidson Electronics Creation & Sound Designer: Benjamin Carey Sound Designer: Bob Scott Gilgamesh: Jeremy Kleeman Enkidu: Mitchell Riley Shamhat/ Uta-Napishti/ Scorpion: Jessica O'Donoghue Ishtar/ Courtier/ Scorpion: Jane Sheldon Humbaba/ Ur-Shanabi/ Courtier: Daniel Szesiong Todd Australian String Quartet: Dale Barltrop, Francesca Hiew: violins Christopher Cartlidge: viola Michael Dahlenburg: cello Ensemble Offspring: Lamorna Nightingale: flutes Jason Noble: clarinets Claire Edwardes: percussion Jacob Abela: piano Jasper Ly: oboe/cor anglais Benjamin Ward: double bass Melina van Leeuwen: harp

Mitch Riley delivers breathtaking vocal gymnastics with Georges Aperghis’s Récitations, exploring the full, hyper-extended range and theatricality of the human voice. Then Mitch Riley and Ronan Apcar perform an Improvisation based on a Kenneth Slesser poem '5 Bells'.

Ensemble Offspring presents I keep your burning glances, recorded in Glebe on 28 February 2026. Jack Symonds – I keep your burning glances (2025)* baritone, percussion, piano *World premiere “This song cycle is a total re-write of an unperformed work from 2014, re-setting the same poetry by Michelangelo for baritone, piano and percussion. The versions of Michelagelo’s poetry I have used are radically cut and shortened sonnet-fragments, tending towards epigraphs. These texts have hovered at the fringe of my consciousness for a decade and the remains of the earlier settings are just visible inside a new harmonic, vocal and coloristic language; a six-part synecdoche of a modernist Michelangelo.” Artists Mitch Riley (baritone) Claire Edwardes (Artistic Director) Jack Symonds (piano) Video and Audio by Oliver Miller © Ensemble Offspring 2026 https://www.ensembleoffspring.com/ Ensemble Offspring is assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and by the NSW government through Create NSW. We work and play on Gadigal land.

By Jack Symonds and Pierce Wilcox Direction and Design: Alex Berlage Voice: Mitch Riley Piano: Jack Symonds Electronics: Ben Carey Presented by Sydney Chamber Opera and Carriageworks as part of the 2018 Resonant Bodies Festival Sydney

I've Had Enough (2011) Composers: J.S.Bach (Ich habe genug) and Jack Symonds (Nunc Dimittis) Musical Director: Huw Belling Director: Kip Williams The Lighthouse (2012) Composer: Peter Maxwell Davies Musical Director: Jack Symonds Director: Kip Williams Climbing Toward Midnight (2013) Composer and Musical Director: Jack Symonds Director: Netta Yashchin His Music Burns (2014) Composers: György Kurtág (...pas à pas – nulle part...) and George Benjamin (Into the Little Hill) Musical Director: Jack Symonds Director: Sarah Giles Mayakovsky (2014) Composer: Michael Smetanin Librettist: Alison Croggon Musical Director: Jack Symonds Director: Kat Henry Fly Away Peter (2015) Composer: Elliott Gyger Librettist: Pierce Wilcox Musical Director: Jack Symonds Director: Imara Savage O Mensch! (2016) Composer: Pascal Dusapin Piano: Jack Symonds Director: Sarah Giles