The Music Show
ABC Australia
248 episodes
All kinds of music and all kinds of musicians in conversation with Andrew Ford.
Episodes page 1 of 5
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Live from the ABC studios: Katie Noonan & Lisa Miller
To celebrate AusMusic Month, The Music Show brings you The Dot Strong Sessions. Named for the ABC's formidable tea lady (and the outdoor terrace that bears her name at ABC Ultimo in Sydney), we'll bring you sessions…
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Fanny Lumsden has changed her mind about traditions
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised this program contains the names and voices of people who have died. Fanny Lumsden’s new album is a rollicking country record with her voice - both as a…
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Creative collaborations: Elena Kats-Chernin & Tamara-Anna Cislowska and Colin Stetson & Brìghde Chaimbeul
Composer and pianist Elena Kats-Chernin and pianist and ABC Classic presenter Tamara-Anna Cislowska share stories from a friendship and collaboration that's lasted decades, including how Tamara-Anna convinced Elena to…
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Loudon Wainwright III and k.d. lang
Loudon Wainwright III is a songwriter who falls somewhere between Woody Guthrie and Tom Lehrer. As well as being a storyteller and comedian, he's the father of a brood of musical children including Rufus and Martha…
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The Avalanches and Patti Smith
Listening to the new album by The Avalanches is like being on the dancefloor and then getting hit in the head with a whole desktop computer. Electronic, nostalgic, sample-laden and manic, their latest record is called…
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Cezary Skubiszewski: a life's soundtrack
The musical voice behind Australian classics like Two Hands and Red Dog, Cezary Skubiszewski is being honoured at the 2026 Screen Music Awards for Distinguished Services to the Australian Screen. In an extended…
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Cellist Freya Schack-Arnott, and two foley artists on the thin line between sound effects and music
Cellist and composer Freya Schack-Arnott divides her time between classical and experimental music, exploring all of the possibilities of her instrument. Her latest project, Nornir - which premieres at the Melbourne…
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Emma Ruth Rundle finds her people in These Killing Times
Emma Ruth Rundle describes herself as a guitarist - an instrument she's taken from metal bands to ambient minimalism. But it's her voice that's been front and centre on recent albums, alongside her writing, which has…
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Sally Walker performs to an audience of one and Mixtape blends music and gameplay
In 2020, the only way of making concerts work was suddenly to have very small audiences, so the 1:1 series allowed Sally Walker to continue to perform and connect with listeners. Sally has kept the concerts going…
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What Pulp did for an encore
Australian mezzo soprano Jenny Duck-Chong, and soprano Nicole Thomson have developed a new resource for artists, teachers, and students: an online database called the Australian Art Song Resource. They join Andy to…
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John Coltrane
In celebration of John Coltrane's centenary this week, we trace the style and influence of one of jazz's greatest musicians, composers, and collaborators. We’ll hear a wide range of voices from the Music Show archive:…
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Takuya Nakamura's jazz-jungle fusion & a new book of letters between composer Larry Sitsky and Gwen Harwood
Some might think that jazz and electronic music don't have much in common, but Japanese DJ and trumpeter Takuya Nakamura has proven all that wrong. Growing up in 1980s Tokyo, he moved to the United States in 1990 to…
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Four hundred years of family singing: Bob Copper
For hundreds of years, the Copper family have sung for their own pleasure, and for the pleasure of the people of Rottingdean, the East Sussex village where the family have been living since at least the 1500s. Singing…
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Bryce Dessner's Trembling Earth & Bob Scott's enormous radio
Drawing references to Kerouac, Munch, and Hildegard of Bingen, Bryce Dessner's music builds on a rich tradition of art that extends far beyond music. The classical composer (and guitarist for The National) is…
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Benjamin Clementine isn't a jazz musician
To mark Andy’s departure from the show at the end of this year, we’re bringing you some of his favourite conversations from 32 years on air. This week, we’ll hear the American pianist, composer and teacher Seymour…
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John Farnham: The voice behind The Voice
You’re The Voice remains a favourite for generations of Australians and the album it's on, Whispering Jack, has sold more than 1.5 million copies. But John Farnham was 37 by the time he recorded that album and the…
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Robert Forster's Swedish Strawberries and the Red Spirit Singers let their voices ring out
Recorded (largely) as-live in Sweden, with a group of that country's indie luminaries, Robert Forster's latest album Strawberries shows the singer-songwriter in a playful mood and embracing the role of storyteller.…
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Camp Cope's Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich on the artists rewriting the rules of the Australian music scene
Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich, or 'Kelso', of the great all-woman Australian rock band Camp Cope, is also a phenomenal writer. Her new book It's Not For You is part memoir, part feminist journalist project, in which she traces…
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Belinda Webster and Tall Poppies Records: a life's work
Belinda Webster, the producer, engineer and singular force behind Australia's art music label Tall Poppies died this month at the age of 74. Across 278 releases, Webster recorded and released music by many of…
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A concerto for accordion and orchestra & the Persian tar gets Comfortable with jazz
With a recent concerto for amplified accordion and orchestra and another for more than 60 recorders Holly Harrison clearly loves a challenge. She shares why she enjoys writing for new instruments, and how she composed…
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Dolly Parton (1946-2026)
Dolly Parton said she wrote over three thousand songs, so we can barely begin to honour her extraordinary songwriting in just one hour. From her early country duets with Porter Wagoner, to the extraordinary purple…
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The poetry of aja monet and Thomas Meadowcroft on composing for sound effects and orchestra
"I think if we saw every conversation as music, we would drastically shift the course of history." So says the poet and performer aja monet. For her latest record, the color of rain, monet worked with Meshell…
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James Ellis Ford made a Mercury Prize nominated record in a chemotherapy ward
James Ellis Ford is better known as James Ford, producer for artists like Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine and Fontaines D.C. When you add the Ellis, he's a solo artist making his own music and he joins…
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Kate Miller-Heidke on Handel and planning for the apocalypse
Kate Miller-Heidke's new album, the first since 2020's Child In Reverse is a very theatrical and sometimes funny slice of gothic-folk called The Kiss and the Abyss. In between live performances of two new songs, Kate…
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Grace Cummings' Bloodhorse! and the legacy of Vivaldi's star orphan
Grace Cummings’ latest album is called Bloodhorse! and it's fantastic and fantastically strange. Her ragged, bluesy voice floats through a lush, ornate sound world on tracks like 'The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of…
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Tom Service on the classical music that shapes us
Can you tell the history of the world in fifty pieces of music? No, but BBC Radio 3 presenter and writer Tom Service has given it a red hot go in A History of the World in 50 Pieces: The Classical Music That Shapes Us.…
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The travelling community of the Grateful Dead, Don Walker's Love Songs, and a performance lasting 639 years
All The Grateful Dead are one of the iconic bands of the last century, not just for their music, but for their extended tours, which saw their fans follow them across America and create a very special sort of…
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The dangerous jazz life of Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day was a jazz singer who lived 'the jazz life'. She's been compared to people like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald: an incredible singer, storyteller, and a deeply troubled drug user and alcoholic. Despite…
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William Basinski hosts a sleepover, Will Swenson plays Neil Diamond, and vale Glen Hansard
American composer William Basinski's very long and much celebrated avant-garde electronic work The Disintegration Loops was born from the gradual decay of magnetic tape. It was created over a month in August and…
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Music Now & Then: Liza Lim
The latest in our Music Now & Then series with composer Liza Lim, who first appeared on The Music Show in its early years when she was in her mid twenties, where both her youth and the 'difficulty' of her music were…
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Music for winter stillness and electromagnetic storms
The Veils frontman Finn Andrews joins Andy to talk about love, death, and Sinead O'Connor, all features of their latest and aptly named album Fragile World. Married couple Anna Maria Friman and Arve Henriksen are both…
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Middle of the Air: The Music Show at Sydney Writers' Festival
Ziggy Ramo, Leah Senior, and Kate Fagan join Andy to talk about the art of turning poetry into song. Recorded live at the 2026 Sydney Writers' Festival, in partnership with Red Room Poetry. Songs performed live: •…
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Songs about fish, divorce, and moth DNA: Montaigne, Gin Wigmore, and Elissa Goodrich
Electropop singer, songwriter and producer Montaigne took the plunge into the world of independent music after over a decade with a big label a couple of years back. Their first offering in the indie era is an album…
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"An ecosystem for song people": 25 years of Koori Radio
Guringai writer and creator Kaylene Langford is behind the mic for NAIDOC Week, with a celebration of Koori Radio for its 25th anniversary. "It's an ecosystem for song people" says Stiff Gins' Nardi Simpson, one of…
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ELISION Ensemble turn 40 and Rosie McDonald on The Go Twos and Nigel Lever
ELISION Ensemble began as a Melbourne new music ensemble, but have gone on to become international in both focus and reputation, building enduring collaborations with some of the world's best modern composers. Elision…
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Cover Story: Can’t Buy Me Love
It’s almost impossible to choose a Beatles song for Cover Story (we’ve been putting it off for three series). The band’s productivity in 1964 alone would give us ten good options. It was the year of their first - and…
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Stephen Foster: The bicentenary of the father of American music
Stephen Foster's songs remain among the best known music to come out of the United States, with classics like Oh! Susannah, Hard Times (Come Again No More), and Old Folks At Home still covered to this day. He wrote…
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Cover Story: Never Tear Us Apart
Never Tear Us Apart began its life as a bluesy demo by INXS’s keyboardist and songwriter Andrew Farris. Frontman Michael Hutchence gave it lyrics, producer Chris Thomas gave it synthesisers, and the public gave it a…
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Embracing the choir: Alina Pash returns to Ukraine and Kristina Olsen takes up choral composition
Alina Pash was last on the show back in 2021, before the Russian invasion of her country began. At that point, Pash said that she wanted to stay in Ukraine and be part of a strong emerging music scene there.…
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Cover Story: Wonderwall
A love song, a football anthem, and a weapon of war for men with acoustic guitars: Noel Gallagher said he thought Wonderwall was an annoying song when he wrote it. Cover Story dips more than a toe into the world of…
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A solo debut from Trials and Isobel D'Cruz Barnes is working In Shadows
As one-half of A.B. Original, Trials was responsible for one of the key moments in Australian hip-hop over the last decade with the album Reclaim Australia. Away from that collaboration he’s worked with everyone from…
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Cover Story: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Cover Story makes a long overdue visit to the songwriting of Carole King, who with her then-husband Gerry Goffin wrote Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow as songwriters-for-hire in the Brill Building music factory of…
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David Mills' glamour and despair and Lawrence Power shines a light on British music
Comedian David Mills takes his acerbic humour into the world of cabaret for this year's Adelaide Cabaret Festival. He joins Andy to talk about pessimism, storytelling, and picking the right song for the moment.…
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Different versions of Daniel Avery and clipping's experimental approach to hip-hop
Daniel Avery has been filling dancefloors around the world for more than a decade, both as a dj and with his own critically acclaimed records. On his latest, Tremor, Avery has embraced his love of rock and shoegaze,…
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Cover Story: Jolene
Every great song gets covered. Sometimes beautifully, sometimes badly, and sometimes by people who clearly should have known better. Cover Story, returning for its third series, hunts down the best, the worst, and the…
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Miles Davis: a centenary
A portrait of the legendary trumpeter Miles Davis on his centenary. We hear how Miles not only changed music but also the lives of those he played with. We've pulled interviews from The Music Show's archives with…
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A tribute to Sonny Rollins, Mahalia Barnes sings The Rose, and Cass McCombs live in the studio
We pay tribute to Sonny Rollins, who died this week at the age of 95. Rollins played with many of the greats of jazz, but was himself something of loner. Driven by ideas of perfection, Rollins played into his 80s, but…
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Hilary Geddes' Redleaf and Kae Tempest's Self Titled
Hilary Geddes is a guitarist of understated virtuosity, and a composer of music that takes jazz into a rolling, lush, environmental register. Her latest album Redleaf, with the Hilary Geddes Quartet, is a record of the…
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Barry Conyngham's rarely performed classic & Mogwai and Tortoise both celebrate new music and big anniversaries
Barry Conyngham’s piece Ice Carving isn’t performed very often, and almost never in its intended configuration - a solo violinist surrounded by an audience, who are then surrounded by 4 string orchestras. It’s finally…
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Folk fixtures: Judy Small's Swansongs, and the National Folk Festival at 60
Judy Small is a fixture of the Australian folk scene, a writer and performer of songs about politics and people. She joins Andy to recap the thirty-ish years since she was last on the show, including a career in family…
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