During 2008 the ensemble presented 36 individual works, including 11 world premieres, in 18 concerts or events in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Berlin and London.
[2] Paul Griffiths, in Modern Music and After, writes of ELISION, "whose splendiferous range of colours ... has produced a kind of sensuous complexity that may be uniquely Australian".
Interplay between the resultant unpredictabilities and performative decisions required by complex multi-layered and paradoxical strands of information embedded in notational practice can lead to a frustration for the player, or to a fascination born of engagement in the act of "what it is to make music".
Typically, though not exclusively, these tend to be rhythmically highly complex, with dense webs of wide-flung micro-tonal melodies, and the same horror of rests that one finds in Fauré's later chamber works.
"[4] The ensemble has commissioned and premiered new works from Richard Barrett, Chris Dench,[3] Brian Ferneyhough, James Dillon, Michael Finnissy, Aaron Cassidy, Evan Johnson, Timothy McCormack, Jeroen Speak, and others associated with the so-called New Complexity movement.
Beyond notated music, ELISION has also maintained a strong thread of structured improvisation performance, often within cross-artform events, such as the seven-night long Bar-do'i-thos-grol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) (composer Liza Lim, installation artist Domenico de Clario; Lismore 1994 and Perth 1995) (described as "one of the most astonishing creations in recent Australian music performance"[14]).
ELISION was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1986 by its current Artistic Director Daryl Buckley and other musicians from the Victorian College of the Arts;[15] several founding members remain in the ensemble.
Deborah Kayser (soprano), Genevieve Lacey (recorder), Paula Rae (flute), Peter Veale (oboe), Richard Haynes (clarinet), Carl Rosman (clarinet), Timothy O'Dwyer (saxophone), Ysolt Clark (horn), Tristram Williams (trumpet), Benjamin Marks (trombone), Peter Neville (percussion), Richard Barrett (electronics), Daryl Buckley (electric guitar), Marilyn Nonken (piano), Marshall McGuire (harp), Satsuki Odamura (koto), Graeme Jennings (violinist) (violin), Erkki Veltheim (viola), Séverine Ballon (cello), Joan Wright (double bass).
1959) in works written for the Elision ensemble, whose splendiferous range of colours (with a prominent tuned percussion centre, including angklung, mandolin and guitar, as well as full stretches of winds and strings) has produced a kind of sensuous complexity that may be uniquely Australian."
If evidence were needed to counter that notion, a recent CD of solo works by Brian Ferneyhough (Etcetera KTC 1206), played by the extraordinary musicians of the Australian group Elision, would do the trick.