The Music Show

Bill Bailey is best known for his stand-up comedy, but one of his first public performances was a Mozart piano concerto, with his own cadenza, in his hometown of Bath. He joins Andy to explain what Mozart has in common with dancing on television, how timing is crucial to both comedy and music, and making sure there’s enough affection in his musical parodies. Modern troubadour Darren Hanlon has per...

Composer, bass player and vocalist  Esperanza Spalding  has become one of the most important voices in 21st century jazz. She has also worked across almost every style of music with some legendary musicians (Wayne Shorter, Stevie Wonder, and Janelle Monáe to name a few). Her latest collaboration is an album with Brazilian singer songwriter Milton Nascimento and includes songs in Portuguese and Eng...

In Wangkatjungka, near Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, Walmajarri Elder Kankawa Nagarra plays her guitar and sings the blues. Her latest album, Wirlmarni, was recorded in the desert with her great grandchildren at her feet, insects buzzing and the sound of kangaroo tails being wrapped in alfoil for the fire. Kankawa speaks to Andrew Ford about a life of music, from her earliest memories of trad...

Punjabi Australian singer songwriter Parvyn returns to The Music Show to perform songs from her brand new album Maujuda; a seamless fusion of soul, jazz, disco and Indian classical and folk traditions. Elana Stone 's new solo album Married To The Sound sees her songwriting tackling some of life's biggest moments. As one quarter of folk band All Our Exes Live In Texas and in-demand touring musician...

We hear from this year’s four Boyer lecturers ; pianist and writer Anna Goldsworthy​, violist and conductor Aaron Wyatt, composer, conductor and performer Iain Grandage, and Artistic Director of Gondwana Choirs Lyn Williams. They all reflect on the future of classical music in this country. Master of the Afghan rabab Qais Essar performs traditional Afghan music live in the studio, but also shares...

Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan were being surveilled and, in some cases, blacklisted by the FBI due to their political activism and ties to the U.S Communist Party. Writer and historian Aaron J. Leonard has written several books on the subject and is in to reveal why the US Government was so fixated on musicians in the...

London-based tenor saxophonist, bandleader and composer Nubya Garcia  is in Australia for Melbourne International Jazz Festival and to play shows in support of her new album Odyssey . Featuring vocalists like Esperanza Spalding and string players from Chineke!, Nubya revels in expanding her sonic palette and pushing jazz into the realms of dub, R&B, soul and beyond.  And, experimental trio  Bl...

German countertenor Andreas Scholl returns to The Music Show whilst he’s in the country with the Australian World Orchestra. He talks to Andrew about the life of a countertenor: old repertoire, new repertoire, and looking after a voice when great demands are made of it. American pianist Donna Coleman deep dives into the life and influence of American modernist composer Charles Ives, whose 150th an...

Julia Fredersdorff, Artistic Director of Van Diemen's Band , talks about music from perhaps the most turbulent time in England's history - its Civil War. And, violinist, composer and vocalist Véronique Serret  collaborates with nature on her latest (and ARIA Award nominated) album Migrating Bird .

Elisabeth Lutyens and Edward Clark were a kind of power couple of the 20th century: she a prolific composer; he a less successful conductor but an influential producer and administrator. Annika Forkert is the author of Elisabeth Lutyens and Edward Clark: the orchestration of progress in British twentieth-century music, and she tells Andy the story of their relationship and their work. Electronic p...

Percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and poet Raymond Antrobus are two of the UK’s most famous Deaf artists and their first collaboration is Another Noise, an album that captures first-takes of Raymond’s spoken word poems, accompanied by Evelyn’s percussion, completely improvised without her having prior knowledge of any poem performed. They join Andy at the start of what promises to be a beautiful f...

Crooked Fiddle Band refer to their music as “chainsaw folk”, but their fourth studio album The Free Wild Wind & the Songs of Birds is heavier on the folk than on the chainsaw. The band comes into The Music Show studio to play live from the new album, and talk about eighteen years playing together. What’s it like to have thousands of fans sing your own words back at you? Angie McMahon knows thi...

Henry Wagons remembers Outlaw Country figurehead Kris Kristofferson, who has died at the age of 88. From Nashville to Hollywood, from Oxford University to the US Army, he had a life almost as unique as his voice. That leaves Willie Nelson the last of the Highwaymen, the original Outlaw supergroup, and his music is the subject of New Zealand-based Canadian songwriter Tami Neilson’s new album Neilso...

With a voice that's 'equal parts balm and blowtorch' Irish multi-instrumentalist and singer songwriter Susan O'Neill makes a welcome return to The Music Show. She was one of our last live guests in March 2020 before she had to cut her tour short and race home. The last four years have been filled with nature, songwriting and collaboration and she joins us from her home in County Clare to pull apar...

Singer songwriter Eliza Hull has been writing and performing piano-driven pop music for over a decade. She's also a disability advocate and has championed increased visibility and access for musicians around Australia. Only in the last couple of years has she started sharing more about her own disability in her songwriting, including last year's EP Here They Come. Eliza is on The Music Show ahead...

Ten years ago Melody Pool  was a rising star of the Australian folk music scene. She won awards and released two acclaimed albums of heartbreaking songs, and then she disappeared. It takes a lot of guts to step back publicly from the music industry when your career has so much momentum, but Melody made the decision to prioritise her mental health. Last year she made a return to recording and touri...

The gods are unhappy with a despotic king (Gilgamesh). They create a half-man, half-beast to topple him (Enkidu). They meet, Enkidu doesn’t topple him. They fall in love, destroy a forest, there’s retribution from the gods. Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh wonders what the point of life is. He searches for immortality. And of course there are dancing scorpions. That’s the shortest possible version of the...

Alynda Segarra has been making music as Hurray For The Riff Raff for nearly two decades. They ran away from NYC as a teen to ride trains across states—busking, sleeping rough and meeting all sorts of characters. They then settled in New Orleans and their music career kicked off, but their ninth and latest album, The Past Is Still Alive, finally shares the memories of those formative years of grief...

Performance artist, composer, and violinist Laurie Anderson once told The Music Show that she sometimes starts off thinking something is an opera, and it ends up being a potato print. Her latest album, Amelia , began life as a much longer orchestral piece that “didn’t work at all”, but at least it avoided the fate of becoming a potato print. It’s a portrait of Amelia Earhart and a sprawling, atmos...

Arnold Schoenberg’s music tore a hole in the fabric of the twentieth century. Over the course of his life, he charted a new course through expressionism, atonality, and ultimately to the invention of twelve tone serialism. As the father of the Second Viennese School, he’s been both cursed and adored (often at the same time) by the people who’ve taken up his scores – you’ll hear quite a lot of the...

Jazz has always been about innovation and collaboration, and saxophonist and composer Sandy Evans has excelled on both counts for nearly four decades. She returns to The Music Show studio to perform live with an eclectic trio—the bass trombone of Adrian Sherriff and Suresh Vaidyanathan's ghatam (Indian clay drum). Sandy reflects on a life filled with musical conversations and why she's re-releasin...

Composer Larry Sitsky is a charming sort of thorn in the side of the Australian music scene, and he’s about to turn 90. In this conversation recorded at the 2024 Canberra International Music Festival, he doesn’t hold back.  New York based trumpeter Chloe Rowlands divides her time between playing with art brass quartet the Westerlies, and with groups like Fleet Foxes and the 8-Bit Big Band. She’s v...

Romano Crevici has been playing violins made by Harry Vatiliotis for decades. Now drawing to the end of their respective careers, Harry has made one final instrument, which will be Romano's last violin too. The process, challenged by sore joints, thin skin, and Harry's caring responsibilities to the love of his life Maria, have been captured in a moving film called The Last Violin by Carla Thackra...

Good times and bum times, she’s seen them all and she’s here: Geraldine Turner, lynchpin of the Australian music theatre scene from 1970s repertory to the current run of The Mousetrap , reflects on her massive career (so far), her love of Sondheim, and Judy Garland. Geraldine Turner is performing in The Mousetrap until 15 September.  Music heard in the program: Title: I’m Still Here (Follies)Compo...

Friend of The Music Show Kate Fagan’s new book of poetry is entitled Song in the Grass and it’s full of music. She returns to the show to talk about the book, the relationship between her musical and poetic writing, and her enduring connection to folk artists Peggy Seeger and Lisa O’Neill.  The ABC’s iconic old News theme is new again: a new version by sound designer David McDonald puts a fresh li...