The Ensemble Antipodes was founded in 1995 by eight oustanding young musicians to explore the literature of the classical octet. Their unconducted rendering of Anaktoria by Iannis Xenakis caused an uproar among fellow musicians and won the prestigous swiss MGB Chamber music award.
The Ensemble Antipodes has since performed in prestigous halls in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, USA, as well as in China and Korea.

Beside their focus on classical music, they take pride in performing new and newest music, often specially written for them: the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia has granted them an invitation to the Paris CCS to present this particular aspect of the Ensemble Antipodes. Their concert at the World Music Day 2000 Luxembourg has been hailed by critics as the most striking event of the Festival – a reaction prompted again at the 2002 Festival in Hong Kong, which led to invitations to important contemporary festivals.
Rather than being specialised in contemporary music, or indeed authentic performance, it excels in combining these two extreme features in highly charged concert performances.

The Ensemble Antipodes have stipulated in November 2001 a composers workshop „Romainmôtier 2001“: Five composers were invited to present their works with the Ensemble Antipodes and have them performed in successive tour. Some of these works have been performed at the WMD Hong Kong 2002.