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

The bouzouki in Irish folk with Daoirí Farrell; and...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/17

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 into our studio to demonstrate how the three things fit together.Post-post-modern chanteuse Meow Meow returns to The Music Show to talk about The Red Shoes, the third show in her series of Hans Christian Anderson adaptations. She goes into both the music and the

0:54:36

From broken piano to bestseller: Keith Jarrett's The...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/16

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 and after that night’s opera performance, and the 18-year-old promoter talked Jarrett into going on. Still tired, still hungry (dinner arrived too late), still in pain, and very much against his better judgement, Jarrett took the stage at 11.30pm and played what we now

0:54:06

Storytelling, beats and soundscapes on Warlpiri...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/10

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 & Country is a new album and film that’s come out of more than a decade of friendship and collaboration between Wanta, Jerry and Monkey. Blending Warlpiri Jukurrpa (Dreaming) songs, cultural stories, soundscapes from the desert, and electronic beats, it’s a compelling

0:54:36

"I have seen rock and roll's future and its name is...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/09

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 signalled the arrival of Springsteen, and the E Street Band. A child of the Kennedy, King, and Malcolm X assassinations, Springsteen transformed classic rock and roll images - the road, the car, the girl - into something potent and virile that reflected the sense of dread

0:54:36

Collecting Scots songs on horseback with Quinie; and...

The Music Show ·

2026/01/03

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 ancestors as well as Scots Traveller singers like Lizzie Higgins, whose deep connection to the land has been expressed beautifully in song for generations. She speaks to Andy about arranging ballad and piping traditions, the melodic influence of the Irish uilleann

0:54:06

The violin in the colony

The Music Show ·

2026/01/02

“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 is all around — except in violins. Death rarely comes to the violin.” So wrote Arland Weeks in 1929, in The Scientific Monthly.Dr Laura Case gives Andy a potted history of the violin in Australia, from 1788 to 1914 – and beyond. It's a history of class and gender

0:54:06

Chamber music by women with Anna Goldsworthy and...

The Music Show ·

2025/12/27

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 the women composers – famous and lesser known – they have recorded as part of their latest album Radiante.Written from the small shed on his allotment in Northern England, the lyrics on Richard Dawson’s album End of the Middle are filled with small observations and rich

0:54:36

Innovation and imitation: Maurice Ravel at 150

The Music Show ·

2025/12/26

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 true original. He pulled from Spanish music, 18th century music, Viennese waltz and jazz, and yet within seconds it’s always possible to hear Ravel’s own, distinct, voice. To mark the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth, director-composer-lyricist-translator and friend

0:54:06

Genre-benders: Abel Selaocoe and Bush Gothic

The Music Show ·

2025/12/20

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 lifetime of musical influences ranging from his childhood in Sebokeng, a township outside Johannesburg, to adolescence at Soweto’s African Cultural Organisation of South Africa, to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. His classical cello chops, his

0:54:06

Ellen Stekert on a full life in folk music

The Music Show ·

2025/12/19

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, crossing paths with the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Ellen released four albums of traditional songs in the 1950s and then focused her career on academia, teaching English, American and folklore studies.There’s been a resurgence of interest in Ellen’s life

0:54:37

The "doofy folk" of Brisbane band Amaidí; and Luciano...

The Music Show ·

2025/12/13

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 new album Beyond Cape Capricorn reflecting the broad and often dark influences of Scottish and Irish music in the Australian folk tradition. That being said, there's plenty to dance to, as you'll hear when they join Andy to play some tunes live in the studio. Well

0:54:36

Messiah

The Music Show ·

2025/12/12

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 the musical repertoire. Heard now more often at Christmas, it was premiered at Easter in 1742 after three rapid weeks of writing by Handel, and it suggests, as author Charles King says, the staggering possibility that things might turn out all right. Charles joins

0:54:36

From Mixtapes to MTV: The Music of the 1980s with...

The Music Show ·

2025/12/06

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 house music. From girls on film to video killing the radio star, from talking about a revolution to being touched for the very first time: how do you sum up the triumphs and tragedies?

0:54:36

JJJJJerome Ellis on the musicality of stuttering, and...

The Music Show ·

2025/12/05

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, vocals, saxophone, hammered dulcimer, organ, electronics and more. JJJJJerome speaks to Andrew Ford about the musical opportunities that speech disfluency provides, and what we can learn from the spaces and clearings between words.And we get a chromatic harmonica

Reed and Oak: DOBBY & Cate Kennedy

The Music Show ·

2025/11/29

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.

The Arbour: Leah Senior & Giles Watson

The Music Show ·

2025/11/29

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.

0:54:36

Poetry becomes song: Middle of the Air winning songs...

The Music Show ·

2025/11/29

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 Month, the two winning poems, and the songs that they have become, are premiered on The Music Show. Andy talks to DOBBY, Leah, and the two winning poets Cate Kennedy and Giles Watson, as well as David Stavanger and Nicole Smede of Red Room Poetry to celebrate the alchemy

0:54:36

Leo Sayer is still dancing, and art and song in...

The Music Show ·

2025/11/28

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this program contains the voices of people who have died. As a post-war kid, Leo Sayer first heard rock & roll on Radio Luxembourg on a radio late at night. His career has taken some major swerves: he was an illustrator, a graphic designer (he worked on album covers for Bob Marley), then a blues harmonica player. Most famously though, he's a singer, songwriter, and showman. He sits down with Andrew Ford after a

0:54:37

Performing Assyrian-ness with Lolita Emmanuel

The Music Show ·

2025/11/22

Lolita Emmanuel is a creative researcher. She’s a musician, a storyteller, and an academic (moments away from finishing her Doctor of Musical Arts) and she’s part of this year’s ABC Top Five Arts residency. That's early career researchers in the arts who’ve come to Radio National to make shows about their work. Lolita is Assyrian and Armenian, and her creative practice, which forms the basis of her research, is engaged with the process of creative reassembly: building cultural

0:54:37

Guzheng, standards, and Yolngu manikay: three very...

The Music Show ·

2025/11/21

Most people would think of Paul Grabowsky as a jazz pianist. And they wouldn't be wrong, except he's much more than that. He's a composer of film scores, orchestra works and operas, a band leader (he founded the Australian Art Orchestra) and an inveterate collaborator. Just this year, he's released three albums: a recording of standards with singer Michelle Nicolle; a duo with guzheng player Mindy Meng Wang; and, with Peter Knight, a remarkable celebration of the manikay of Ngukurr

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The Music Show

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