Conversations: Art & Passions

Molly's niche career began over a decade ago when she entered a whistling competition on a whim and she now performs all over the world.  Her music sits somewhere between birdsong and the soundtrack to a film noir. Born in Sydney, Molly moved to Hollywood as a baby before returning to Australia for high school in Byron Bay.  Once she realised her talent was more than just a hobby for family and fr...

Dan Rankine (aka 'trials') was the only little Aboriginal boy living in his rural Welsh village when he woke up shaking from a nightmare. That's when he and his mother knew they needed to go home to Adelaide. Dan is now one of Australia's most respected hip hop producers, writers and rappers. Born in Adelaide, Dan spent his early years on the other side of the world - in the rolling, green hills o...

The former Canberra Raiders player on hiding his fantasy reading habits as a kid in Western Queensland, the joy of doing hard things, and how books brought him back from the brink. Warning: Discussion of suicide. Luke was a sensitive kid, growing up on a cattle station in Western Queensland.  He loved being transported by fantasy novels — following the quests, battles and magic they offered him. L...

For 45 years, George Palmer harboured a secret. He spent every spare moment composing classical music, and then shoving his scores in his bottom drawer. Until one day, almost by pure chance, that music saw the light of day. As a young man, George had dreams of becoming a renowned classical music composer, but when he walked into university, he didn't feel like he belonged in the music department....

The Danish-British author, broadcaster and comedian recalls her unusual early life with glee, including how she came to be holding the hand of Neil Armstrong’s assistant at NASA’s headquarters on July 20, 1969. (R) Sandi’s interest in the world was stoked from a young age by her father, Claus, who was Denmark’s first Foreign Correspondent, and who was incredibly famous in his homeland. It was her...

Singer Lisa Simone is the only person in the world who can call Nina Simone 'mommy'. Lisa was the beneficiary of Nina's incredible talent and her affection, but she was also at the mercy of her mother's erratic moods.  Lisa is the only child of the legendary singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist Nina Simone. As a little girl, Lisa loved trying on her mum’s stage costumes and singing with h...

The Gen X actor on making peace with her absent father, the ghosts of her Hollywood past and nursing Anthony Kiedis through his drug addiction while she was still a teenager — a relationship she shudders at today. The 1990s It girl was named for the Scottish island where she was conceived, before her enigmatic folk singer father, Donovan abandoned the family before she was born. A string of stepfa...

When writer Hannah Kent first visited Iceland in 2003, she came across a gothic true story about Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman hanged in Iceland. That story would change her life. Hannah's arrival to the Nordic island as an exchange student in 2003 was a difficult one. On her first night in the country, she found herself stranded late at night at Keflavik Airport and desperately homesick. But...

The artist Loribelle Spirovski on her unusual childhood in the Philippines, meeting her father for the first time at 7 years old, and making her way as one of Australia's most exciting young painters. Loribelle Spirovski grew up in the Philippines, with her mum and her extended Filipino family. Her Serbian father, whom she had never met, was in Australia, driving taxis and waiting for the visa tha...

Song propelled Morris Stuart from his early life shepherding sheep in British Guyana to an unlikely love story in London. In his retirement, he found himself shaping a choir of Central Australian Aboriginal women, who had been breathing life into 138-year-old Lutheran hymns. Morris Stuart met his Australian wife, Barbara in London in the 1960s. The pair led a youth group attached to a nearby churc...

When artist Vincent Fantauzzo was a boy he was a street-fighting petty criminal with dyslexia and a blazing talent for drawing. He escaped jail time, and grew up to become one of Australia's most well-known portrait artists. VIncent Fantauzzo is one of Australia's most successful portrait artists. For his luminous, photo-realistic paintings he's won the People's Choice Award at the annual Archibal...

It took a catastrophic car accident for the singer and actress to leave a decorated career in architecture and focus on her artistic ambitions, including a tribute show to her friends Sinead O'Connor, and Shane MacGowan of The Pogues. Irish-French singer and performer Camille O’Sullivan grew up in County Cork, with her Irish father and French mother. Although she sang throughout her youth, she was...

The musician reflects on the epic evolution of her singing from practical childhood speech therapy to sacred musical fluency. Meg Washington was born in a musical home in Port Moresby, where her parents had met as Australian expats. Meg and her sister spent a lot of their time watching classic Hollywood musicals and also down at the local yacht club where their dad DJ'd every Saturday night. Singi...

From Wollongong to London, via Alice Springs, this is writer Nikki Gemmell on her deeply romantic life, and how she defied expectations to become a famous author. Writer Nikki Gemmell grew up the daughter of a coal miner who thought writers were a burden on society, while her mum taught Nikki that only success was worthy of love. So Nikki went above and beyond to prove her beloved father wrong, an...

The country music star remembers a childhood spent roaming the Nullarbor Plain, and the number one lesson she learned from her father. Kasey Chambers started singing around the campfire as a little girl. She and her family spent much of the year camping on the Nullarbor Plain, where her dad would hunt for foxes and rabbits. Kasey and her brother Nash had a free range childhood, and went to sleep t...

Jeffrey Broadfield has made building his life. It has taken him around the world, and given him a place to belong. Jeffrey Broadfield is a master maker who builds houses to his clients’ wishes and quirks, using carpentry to turn recycled Australian hardwood into dream homes. It’s a craft Jeffrey says is dying. He grew up in Griffith, NSW, where he learned to swim in the irrigation channel and enti...

Author and professor Anita Heiss on her parents' story of romance, and how she brings true history alive in her work. Anita Heiss is a Wiradjuri woman, an author of many books and Professor of Communications at The University of Queensland. She has described herself as a “concrete Koori with Westfield dreaming.” Many of Anita's books focus on great love stories, and the inspiration for these roman...

Artist Michael Kelly's younger sister was born with intellectual disabilities in the 1950s, and went into care. The family lost touch with her until Michael decided it was time to find her again. Michael Kelly has been an artist all his life.  When he was a young boy living in Brisbane, his younger sister was born with intellectual disabilities. She was institutionalised and the family eventually...

When his elders named him Bindi, David Hudson had no idea his future would involve performing with his didgeridoo at the Taj Mahal, or a role in a film starring Marlin Brando  (Content warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners: this episode contains the name of someone who has died.) Western Yalanji and Ewamian man David Bindi Hudson is a performing artist and musician. His paren...

Paula Quintela was seven years old when she witnessed Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat in Chile. She broke up the darkness by becoming her country's champion ocean swimmer and an artist

Ben Lee was a teen rock prodigy by the time he was 14. He then began decades of making music, Hollywood fame, and a journey into alternative spirituality, including the world of ayahuasca Ben Lee grew up in Bondi in the 1980s when it was a place of bikie gangs, Yiddish-speaking grandmas and tribes of kids living next to one of the world's most beautiful beaches.  He was educated at a local Jewish...

When Bonnie Garmus tried to sell her first novel, it was rejected 98 times. Then at 66, she wrote a novel called Lessons in Chemistry, which sold four million copies around the world. Bonnie Garmus had wanted to be a novelist since she was five years old. Decades later, she was a copywriter, an open-water swimmer and a rower when she tried to sell her first novel. After many rejections, she realis...

Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that didn’t appreciate little boys who wanted to dance.  At the make or break moment of his choreography career, the last person Rafael expected to hear from was Australia’s pop princess — Kylie Minogue As the eldest of four brothers, his father expected him to be an example of academic achievement and brava...

When Ray Kelly Snr's grandfather was asked to translate "telephone" into Gumbayngirr, he responded with “muuya barrigi”, or flying breath (CW: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please be advised this program contains discussion of people who have died. Please take care when listening) To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanow...

The oud virtuoso reflects on his path to the instrument, via a stamp collection and an Egyptian movie star When Joseph was 10, his dad swapped an iron and $100 for a second-hand oud at Sydney's Glebe markets.  The oud is a traditional middle eastern instrument – the ancestor of the modern guitar. Joseph had fallen in love with its sound and style when watching the classic films of Egyptian cinema...