The Music Show
ABC Australia
248 episodes
All kinds of music and all kinds of musicians in conversation with Andrew Ford.
Episodes page 2 of 5
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Xiu Xiu take on Eraserhead and Pinchgut Opera's first murder
Xiu Xiu has been a leading figure in American avant-pop for more than two decades: combining abrasive noise and extremely dark subject matter with a catchy pop sensibility. It’s perhaps no surprise then that they’ve…
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The mystery and music of Connie Converse
American Singer-songwriter Connie Converse would be hard enough to pigeonhole had she not disappeared without a trace in 1974. She wrote folk songs, and art songs, and the story of her life and disappearance is a…
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Raven Chacon's Pulitzer Prize-winning Voiceless Mass and Cam Butler takes on the grand organ
Voiceless Mass, by Raven Chacon, can be performed in 'any space of worship with high ceilings and pipe organ' and plays with the amplifying power of a church's architecture, while commenting on the silencing of voices…
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The prodigy and the piano: Ruth Slenczynska 1925-2026
The American pianist Ruth Slenczynska, who died last week at the age of 101, was a childhood prodigy (although she denies the label). That came at a huge price, including a punishing concert schedule from the age of 4,…
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Anna Meredith wants her music loud and the musicality of Dorothy Porter
Scottish composer Anna Meredith creates a meeting place between the concert platform and the rave in her music. Her piece for electronics and string quartet, Tuggemo, takes its name from an archaic English word for a…
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Music Now & Then: Jeremy Sams
Jeremy Sams is a composer, theatre director and a long-time friend of the show. He's the latest in our series of long conversations with old friends. He joined Andy recently in London to talk about how opera, music…
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ZÖJ deafen the devil's ear and The Three Seas embrace naivety
ZÖJ, the collaboration between Gelareh Pour and Brian O'Dwyer perform the opening track from their new album, May The Devil’s Ear Be Deaf, live in the music show studios. The album was recorded at an artists retreat in…
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John Darnielle: meaning, musicals, and The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats started out as a solo project by then-psych nurse John Darnielle recording directly into a boombox in his room. Their latest album (Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan) is a "full-on musical",…
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Going gospel with Robert Finley and going ham(mond) with Jake Mason
Robert Finley's first album was called Age Don't Mean A Thing, which was fitting because he released it in his 60s. Before that, he was a military man and then a carpenter. When he began to go blind he sat down his…
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Hitchock and Herrmann: the thrilling partnership that shaped an era of cinema
Film composer Bernard Herrmann’s career started and ended with classics: his first film was Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941), his last was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976). But it’s the nine films that Herrmann…
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Sparks rennaisance continues and Mo'Ju's rebel heart
There aren’t many bands that are still going after 50 years, but Sparks, who had their first big hit back in 1974 with This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, have seen a renaissance of sorts in the last few years -…
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Tabaran is a Sound of Australia and Carl Vine's final collaboration with the Goldner Quartet
Tabaran, the 1990 album by Not Drowning, Waving and the musicians Of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea featuring Telek, has been inducted into the National Film and Sound Archive as one of the Sounds of Australia. David Bridie…
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Disney's Renaissance man Alan Menken
Alan Menken’s name is synonymous with Disney’s 1990s purple patch: a so called ‘renaissance’ of the animation empire’s fortunes, where a run of films starting with 1989’s The Little Mermaid cut through to a new…
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Pits, picket lines and pop music: the 1984-5 UK miners' strike
We're digging into the archives for a special program looking at the role that music played in the UK miners' strikes: a political, industrial and personal struggle. From Peggy Seeger to Paul Weller, Billy Bragg to…
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Flinders Quartet and Melody Eötvös plan ahead, Cassie To gets personal, and Mantis shares his award-winning hip-hop
Zoe Knighton of Flinders Quartet is undertaking a multi-year project with composer Melody Eötvös. It's fittingly called The Eötvös Cycle, and The Music Show will be following this creation of new Australian repertoire…
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What Did You Hear: listening to the music of Bob Dylan
Writing about and scholarship of Bob Dylan tends to focus on the words - he's a Nobel Prize winner for literature, after all - but his music deserves a deeper look too. Between the jangling guitar sound, rusty-hinge…
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Riccardo Tesi and Giua open their retablos & Rafael Anton Irisarri searches for connection
Riccardo Tesi and Giua are bringing their melodeon, guitar, and Italian folk tradition to Australia for a series of concerts called Retablos. These are Peruvian magic boxes which create windows into different worlds.…
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Music Now & Then: Andy Irvine
Irish singer and multi-instrumentalist Andy Irvine has been coming on The Music Show for over thirty years, so he's the perfect person to start our occasional 2026 series Music Now & Then, in which Andy (Ford) speaks…
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Violinist María Dueñas and percussionist Claire Edwardes
Spanish violinist María Dueñas makes her Australian debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Signed to Deutsche Grammophon since she was nineteen, her distinctive style of…
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Live at WOMADelaide 2026: Ganavya, La Perla and the Zawose Queens
On stage at WOMADelaide, the world's festival on Kaurna Country, Andy hosts bands from Tanzania, Colombia, and India via the USA. The Zawose Queens, La Perla, and Ganavya demonstrate their diverse musical languages in…
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The magnificent voices of Annahstasia and Åkervinda
First discovered as a 17-year-old, Annahstasia found the music industry had a vision for her that she didn't recognise. Leaving the industry behind gave her a chance to find her voice - both metaphorically and…
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Ron Sexsmith and Mary Coughlan
Ron Sexsmith is a Canadian singer-songwriter who more than earns the title of tunesmith with his melodies and storytelling. He's back on The Music Show to talk about his latest album Hangover Terrace, about finding his…
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Marisa Anderson's UnAmerican Folk Music and paying tribute to Éliane Radigue
Marisa Anderson says she learned to play the guitar three times. Once, as a young learner of classical guitar as a child. Then, being exposed to folk music at university, and, finally, when she threw away standard…
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György Kurtág at 100
It's the hundredth birthday of György Kurtág, one of the most revered and increasingly performed of living composers. Cellist Steven Isserlis and baritone Benjamin Appl have both worked closely with the Hungarian…
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The surprising and eclectic sounds of Ben Nobuto and Black Country, New Road
British Japanese composer Ben Nobuto's Hallelujah Sim. opened the BBC Proms in 2024, garnering a roaring, standing ovation (a rare feat for a world premiere). His musical vocabulary, which marries precise chamber music…
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Nairobi comes to Adelaide with Blinky Bill, and the weird and wondrous sacred music of Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo was a Renaissance composer, a prince, and a murderer. His sacred music, including his Tenebrae Responsoria, is a strange collection of settings full of dissonance and chromatic moving parts. AJ America…
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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings celebrate new music and a big anniversary; and Raphael Pichon's surprising choice of Orfeo
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are one of the great couples of Americana, with a catalogue that stretches back decades. Along the way they've put their stamp on the classics of American folk, and created more than a…
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Lachlan Skipworth on expanding his compositional palette and Worlds Only embrace the moment
Lachlan Skipworth, one of Australia's most beautiful compositional voices, has a very unusual new double concerto - for trumpet and clarinet - set to premiere with Omega Ensemble. He tells Andy how a series of 'joyful…
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Andrea Keller's Transients; and Ian Thompson takes us to the French musical underground of 1968
Andrea Keller is not only a pianist, composer, bandleader and educator, she's also the Jazz Ambassador at this year's Clarence Jazz Festival, celebrating its 30th year. She joins Andy to talk about creating a web of…
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Neil and Tim Finn unsplit the Enz and Reuben Brown on the music of Arnhem Land
Tim Finn and Neil Finn have worked together in a number of guises over the years: Crowded House, The Finn Brothers, and guesting on each other’s solo projects. But it all began with Split Enz, and there’s something…
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Lucy Dacus on feelings, bread, and roses; and 'a country trying to sing itself free' in Celtic Utopia
Lucy Dacus is now perhaps best known for being one third of boygenius, one of the great sad girl groups of all time. But her latest album, Forever is a Feeling, is bursting with romantic joy. On her way to Australia…
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Ursula Yovich sings NIna Simone and Toshi Maeda on pop-punk and Mach Pelican
Singer and actor Ursula Yovich joins Andy to talk about Nina Simone. Yovich has been taking on Simone's music for a show at Sydney Festival and she explores what set Simone apart, what part of her story she wanted to…
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The backbone of Midnight Oil: Rob Hirst (1955 - 2026)
From a teenage band driving up and down the coast in a station wagon to one of the biggest Australian bands of all time, Midnight Oil survived on the backbone of drummer, founding member, and songwriter Rob Hirst.…
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The bouzouki in Irish folk with Daoirí Farrell; and The Red Shoes with Meow Meow
The bouzouki has been a feature of Irish folk music since the mid-1960s, and one of the instrument’s finest modern exponents is Daoirí Farrell. He’s also a singer and a song collector, and he's brought his instrument…
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From broken piano to bestseller: Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert
In February 1975, Keith Jarrett turned up at the Cologne Opera House to play a solo concert. He was tired, hungry and in pain, and the Bösendorfer piano was falling apart. Technicians worked on the instrument before…
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Storytelling, beats and soundscapes on Warlpiri Country, and the legacy of the Shangri-Las
Lajamanu is one of the most remote places in Central Australia, and it’s where we meet Wanta Jampijinpa Pawu-Kurlpurlurnu, his father Jerry Jangala Patrick OAM, and the music producer Marc ‘Monkey’ Peckham. Crown &…
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"I have seen rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen": Born To Run at 50
On the 25th of August, 1975, Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run, the "dividing line" of his career. Starting with the title track, written on the edge of his bed in a rented cottage in New Jersey, Born to Run…
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Collecting Scots songs on horseback with Quinie; and The Sex Pistols with Steve Jones
The Glasgow-based singer Quinie travelled across Argyll on her horse Maisie to collect old Scots songs for her new album Forefowk, Mind Me. On this record, Quinie (whose real name is Josie Vallely) pays tribute to her…
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The violin in the colony
“Ships become obsolete; fine furs are ravaged by moths, faded by the sun, worn by rubbing against show cases; garments go out of style; the gold watch grandfather handed down is replaced by a thin one. Change and decay…
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Chamber music by women with Anna Goldsworthy and Richard Dawson's evocative songwriting
Seraphim Trio have been making chamber music together for over twenty years. Pianist Anna Goldsworthy joins Andrew Ford to talk about her relationship with violinist Helen Ayres and cellist Tim Nankervis, as well as…
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Innovation and imitation: Maurice Ravel at 150
Aspirations of modernity, progress and innovation drove music through the 20th century. For French composer Maurice Ravel, inspiration from (and imitation of) his peers, of the voices and styles around him, made him a…
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Genre-benders: Abel Selaocoe and Bush Gothic
Almost every description of South African singer, cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe starts with a phrase like “genre-defying”, but Abel refers to himself as genre defining. Wherever he tours, he brings with him a…
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Ellen Stekert on a full life in folk music
Ellen Stekert has spent a lifetime in folk music. She got her first guitar at 13 (to assist with her rehab after contracting polio) and soon after high school she became enmeshed in the Greenwich Village folk scene,…
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The "doofy folk" of Brisbane band Amaidí; and Luciano Berio at 100 with his student Kim Williams
Brisbane trad band Amaidí say they perform "doofy folk stuff": accordion, guitar, banjo and fiddle augmented by stomp box and electronics. Amaidí means nonsense in Gaelic but it's more than just silly stuff, with their…
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Messiah
What do an actress mired in scandal, a grieving political dissident, a previously enslaved African celebrity, and a court composer have in common? They’re all integral to the story of Messiah becoming a cornerstone of…
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From Mixtapes to MTV: The Music of the 1980s with Tony Wellington
Tony Wellington returns to the show to race through the 1980s in a single episode. It's a decade of contradictions, where big hair, commercial pop hits, lip syncing and the music video meet rap, independent rock, and…
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JJJJJerome Ellis on the musicality of stuttering, and a masterclass in the chromatic harmonica
JJJJJerome Ellis styles their name with five Js because it’s the word they stutter on the most. The artist, writer, composer and multi-instrumentalist has released a new album Vesper Sparrow which layers spoken word,…
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Reed and Oak: DOBBY & Cate Kennedy
Reed and Oak - composed and performed by DOBBY, words by Cate Kennedy. One of two winning poems from our Middle of the Air competition, run in collaboration with Red Room Poetry.
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The Arbour: Leah Senior & Giles Watson
The Arbour - composed and performed by Leah Senior, words by Giles Watson. One of two winning poems from our Middle of the Air competition, run in collaboration with Red Room Poetry.
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Poetry becomes song: Middle of the Air winning songs revealed with DOBBY and Leah Senior
In August, ABC Radio National and Red Room Poetry put out the call for Australian poets to submit new poems to be set to music by two great local musicians, DOBBY and Leah Senior. Now, to mark the end of AusMusic…
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