Damien Ricketson

Damien Ricketson (born 9 May 1973) is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music. He is best known for his innovative compositional practice and in his capacity as the co-founder and co-artistic director of Ensemble Offspring. He is currently an academic at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney of which he is also an alumnus. He holds a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he also teaches. Ricketson is the co-founder and former co-artistic director of the Sydney-based Ensemble Offspring – an organisation dedicated to the performance of new music. Ricketson’s music is characterised by colourful sound-worlds, novel forms and is often multisensory in nature. An early interest in Spectral music can be seen in his frequent exploration of unusual timbres and microtonal pitch structures. Some Shade of Blue, for example, features a newly invented string instrument in a just intonation system. Recent stylistic tendencies have moved away from an earlier abstract style, exemplified in works such as Ptolemy’s Onion, towards what the composer terms a more “corporeal” approach embracing tangible references to existing music and a highly physical perfo