Tissages du Temps

Ensemble Contrechamps is an ensemble of soloists specialized in creating, developing and disseminating instrumental music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Ensemble is dedicated to highlighting the diversity of aesthetics and formats making up the contemporary and experimental scene. For over 40 years the Ensemble Contrechamps has been working hand in hand with a large number of composers, conductors and artists – Rebecca Saunders, Pierre Boulez, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Christine Sun Kim, Michael Jarrell, Jacques Demierre, Olga Kokcharova, Sofia Jernberg, Vimbayi Kaziboni or Heinz Holliger, among others. The Ensemble also showcases the multiple skills and unique talents of its member musicians.

Contrechamps strives to develop fresh formats such as installation-performances, radiophonic concerts, research laboratories or collaborative processes. The Ensemble is a hybrid, both orchestra and collective, which enables it to adapt to a variety of artistic constraints and to the proposals of the artists it works with. Within this context, Contrechamp’s partnership with the Geneva Haute école de musique is meaningful inasmuch as it allows its members to remain in touch with the freshest ideas, as well as impart their expertise to coming generations.

Recognized for its work and invited to perform on international stages, Contrechamps regularly appears at events such as Ultima in Oslo, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Venice Biennale, and Ircam-Centre Pompidou in Paris.

The Ensemble’s many partners in Geneva include La Bâtie, Archipel, the Grand Théâtre, the Ensemble Vide, the OCG, the Théâtre Am Stram Gram, the ADC,the cave12 and the St. Pierre Cathedral. Contrechamps has performed on a variety of stages throughout Switzerland like the Gare du Nord in Basel, Schauspielhaus in Zurich or Plateforme 10 in Lausanne, to name just a handful.

A colorful outreach program and exciting educational activities involving schools and museums allow our musicians to impart their passion to a public of all ages and from all walks of life, and to enrich and fortify the local cultural fabric. Contrechamps Editions publish significant books on contemporary music.

The Ensemble has made over twenty recordings and, since last season, has been offering a new collection of vinyls on its own Contrechamps label in collaboration with Speckled-Toshe.

Ensemble Contrechamps is supported by

Photo credit: Guillaume Collignon

One of Australia’s leading musicians, YAMAHA artist and pianist Kristian Chong has performed extensively throughout Australia and the UK, and in China, France, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, and Zimbabwe. He is in frequent demand as concerto soloist, solo recitalist and chamber musician.

As concerto soloist he has appeared with the Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, and orchestras in the UK, New Zealand and China with conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Nicholas Braithwaite, Jessica Cottis, Roy Goodman, Sebastian Lang-Lessing, Nicholas Milton, Benjamin Northey, Tuomas Hannikainen, Marcus Stenz, Arvo Volmer and Marco Zuccarini. Highlights have included Rachmaninoff 3rd (Sydney Symphony), Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody in Beijing and Canberra (Canberra Symphony), and Britten (Adelaide Symphony). Recent highlights include Shostakovich 2nd, Brahms 1st, Rachmaninoff 3rd, Beethoven’s 3rd and Emperor in Melbourne, Ravel’s Left-Hand concerto with both the Australian Youth Orchestra & Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, Saint-Saëns 2nd & Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody with the Melbourne Symphony, and Malcolm Williamson’s 2nd with the Canberra Symphony.

Described by The Age as ‘a true chamber musician at work’, Kristian has collaborated extensively with musicians such as cellists Li-Wei Qin and Timo-Veikko Valve, violinists Vadim Gluzman, Rebecca Chan, Sophie Rowell, Dale Barltrop, Daniel Dodds, Jack Liebeck and Satu Vänskä, violist Christopher Moore, mezzo soprano Caitlin Hulcup, clarinettist Philip Arkinstall, baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, (with whom he has recorded with ABC Classics) flautist Megan Sterling and the Australian String Quartet amongst many others. His festival appearances include the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Adelaide, Coriole, Huntington Estate, Mimir and Bangalow Festivals.

Other recent solo and chamber highlights include Oxford May Music Festival (UK) in May 2025 and the ‘Kristian Chong and Friends’ series at the Melbourne Recital Centre, in its thirteenth year in 2026.

Kristian studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Piers Lane & Christopher Elton, with Stephen McIntyre at the University of Melbourne and with Noreen Stokes and Stefan Ammer at the Elder Conservatorium. He is on piano and chamber music faculty at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Photo: John Tsiavis