PODCAST

The Music Show

ABC Australia

All kinds of music and all kinds of musicians in conversation with Andrew Ford.

music music interviews

All Episodes

0:54:36

Pits, picket lines and pop music: the 1984-5 UK...

The Music Show ·

2026/03/29

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 brass bands—there's music supporting the striking miners, songs tormenting strikebreakers and tracks referencing (and sometimes sampling) National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.Emeritus Professor of Politics at the

0:54:36

Flinders Quartet and Melody Eötvös plan ahead, Cassie...

The Music Show ·

2026/03/28

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 over the next five years. Composer Cassie To has told other people's stories when she's scored for the screen and advertising, but her debut album, Heart Songs, takes her into a deeply personal space. Mantis is the 2025 Pacific Break winner, for his track Weatherman

0:54:27

What Did You Hear: listening to the music of Bob Dylan

The Music Show ·

2026/03/22

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 vocal stylings, and highly variable intonation, his unpolished and constantly shifting attitude towards performing his own music demands a long conversation with Steven Rings, author of What Did You Hear: The Music of Bob Dylan.Title: Things Have ChangedArtist: Bob

0:54:27

Riccardo Tesi and Giua open their retablos & Rafael...

The Music Show ·

2026/03/21

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. Riccardo and Giua join Andy to open a window into their worldPoints of Inaccessibility, the latest album by Rafael Anton Irisarri, began as an audio-visual improvisation at a former psychiatric prison in Utrecht. The ambient composer was interested in the emotional

0:54:23

Music Now & Then: Andy Irvine

The Music Show ·

2026/03/15

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 to long-running guests about how the world of music around them has changed over the years. Andy spoke to Andy in front of a gaggle of session-goers at the Gaelic Club in Sydney.The Music Show is recorded on Gadigal, Gundungurra and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung

0:54:23

Violinist María Dueñas and percussionist Claire Edwardes

The Music Show ·

2026/03/14

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 playing, her expressiveness, and her youth have all captured audiences. She talks to Andy about embracing canonical repertoire like Beethoven, and new music like the work she's premiered by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. Claire Edwardes is an old friend of the show: one

Live at WOMADelaide 2026: Ganavya, La Perla and the...

The Music Show ·

2026/03/08

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 front of a live audience. The Music Show is made on Kaurna, Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country CountryTechnical production by Ann-Marie Debettencor

0:53:57

The magnificent voices of Annahstasia and Åkervinda

The Music Show ·

2026/03/07

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 literally, with months spent testing various mics and studios to get the right right for her latest album, Tether. While she points to influences like Nina Simone and Bill Withers, Annahstasia shares with the Music Show that it was schoolyard bullying that originally made her

0:54:36

Ron Sexsmith and Mary Coughlan

The Music Show ·

2026/03/01

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 voice eight albums into his career, and being a songwriter's songwriter.Uncategorisable is how we like them on The Music Show and Mary Coughlan is certainly that. The Irish singer is headed to Australia for Port Fairy Folk Festival, and a run of other dates on what

0:54:36

Marisa Anderson's UnAmerican Folk Music and paying...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/28

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 tuning about fifteen years later. On her latest album, The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music, she has taken inspiration from the record collection of Harry Smith and created her own version of music from countries that the USA has been at war with.And Éliane Radigue died

0:54:32

György Kurtág at 100

The Music Show ·

2026/02/22

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 composer on his rarefied music, and they tell Andy about his humour, high standards and a commitment to work that finds him currently composing a new opera in between taking Latin and Mandarin lessons.Kurtág centenary celebrations at ANAM in Melbourne include Kurtág and

0:54:32

The surprising and eclectic sounds of Ben Nobuto and...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/21

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 sensibilities with video game sound effects and electronic multitracking, is unique in the universe of contemporary composition. He joins Andy to unpack his composition process and the ideas behind a new composition called Hope Spiral. Black Country, New Road brings

0:53:57

Nairobi comes to Adelaide with Blinky Bill, and the...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/15

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 is the Artistic Director of Luminescence Chamber Singers, and she joins Andy to talk about how the gory details of Gesualdo's life translate to the music.Blinky Bill is a Kenyan musician and producer who, as part of the group Just A Band, drove the development of

0:53:57

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings celebrate new music...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/14

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 few classics of their own. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Time (The Revelator), they're heading back to Australia to show off their latest collection of new material: Woodland. They performed material from both albums live in the Music Show studios. Raphaël Pichon

0:53:57

Lachlan Skipworth on expanding his compositional...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/08

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 and uplifting' commissions added a new string to his bow.And Thomas William Smith & Mara Schwerdtfeger from the ambient collective Worlds Only share why they prefer to exist in the moment, creating live shows that are full of pieces of structured improvisation

0:53:57

Andrea Keller's Transients; and Ian Thompson takes us...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/07

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 collaborators in her Transients series. Ian Thompson's book, Synths, Sax and Situationists, examines the music of the French underground that began with the Paris 'events' of May 1968. For the next decade, bands such as Daevid Allen's Gong, Red Noise and Heldon were

0:53:57

Neil and Tim Finn unsplit the Enz and Reuben Brown on...

The Music Show ·

2026/02/01

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 about that music that keeps bringing them back together. Neil and Finn reminisce about their early collaborations, explain how a setlist comes together, and share how The Eagles were a surprising influence on the band.Back in 1948, a major scientific expedition travelled

0:53:57

Lucy Dacus on feelings, bread, and roses; and 'a...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/31

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 for a series of shows, she talks to Andy about finding its lush sound, performing it live, and about singing for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral inauguration in New York City.Útóipe Cheilteach (Celtic Utopia), a film by Dennis Harvey and Lars Lovén, explores what has happened

0:54:34

Ursula Yovich sings NIna Simone and Toshi Maeda on...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/25

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 tell, the continuing importance of Simone's politics, and the cost to an artist to perform and share themselves on the stage.And Toshi Maeda, from the Australian punk band Mach Pelican, shares the band's first new music in almost two decades, and explains how he got

0:54:34

The backbone of Midnight Oil: Rob Hirst (1955 - 2026)

The Music Show ·

2026/01/24

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. Hirst, who has died at the age of 70, was a frequent guest on The Music Show, both as an Oil and with his blues band the Backsliders, and we remember him with a selection of appearances, including his demonstration of the musical washboard.And Pinchgut Opera remembers

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