Though best known as a musicologist - the author of 16 books - Lawrence Kramer's other life as a composer shines through all his writings. He says he has become increasingly aware that music is made of sound, a fact that in Kramer's view has perhaps been 'too obvious for its own good'. Accordingly, he has turned his attention to writing about the nature of sound and ways in which we perceive it, first in The Hum of the World and now in Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being. We welcome him b...
Dec 15, 2024•54 min
At 13 years old Janis Ian wrote one of the most iconic American songs of 1960s, Society's Child. Ten years later At Seventeen spoke to millions of women and girls around the world and made her even more of a household name. Janis' extraordinary life is told in a new documentary by filmmaker Varda Bar-Kar , who follows the highs (GRAMMY awards, multi-platinum albums) as well as the lows (homophobia, misogyny and heartbreak) that follow Janis throughout her career. The director is on to celebrate ...
Dec 14, 2024•54 min
Sam Lee spends a lot of time walking in, thinking about, and singing of the UK's wild places. The singer, folk song collector, pilgrim and activist released his fourth studio album songdreaming earlier this year. Traditional songs are brought into the 21st century with lush arrangements, lyrics addressing contemporary issues, and the inclusion of Trans Voices, a London-based choir. Andrew Ford catches up with Sam before he heads our way for the Woodford Folk Festival . Carla Blackwood is one of ...
Dec 08, 2024•54 min
Forty years on, to the day, from when Do They Know It's Christmas? stormed the UK charts and remained at number #1 for five weeks, Bob Geldof is a guest on The Music Show to talk about the song's complicated legacy, how he looks back on Live Aid, and why he thinks pop music doesn't unite us like it used to. Sydney soul artist CINTA has lived a life of performing and sharing, over-sharing she says, on the streets as an itinerant young busker, touring in the giant 27-piece funk collective The Regi...
Dec 07, 2024•54 min
We’re used to seeing him with a guitar strapped to his chest or playing keyboards on stage with Midnight Oil, but Jim Moginie returns to the Music Show to sit at the grand piano this time. He’s joined by drummer Hamish Stuart to play songs from his latest solo album Everything’s Gonna Be Fine. He’ll reveal the importance of optimism, irony, and telling personal - not just political - stories. A life spent in hip hop has culminated in Kultar Ahluwalia’s most recent show and EP The Mixed-Race Tape...
Dec 01, 2024•54 min
Paul Kelly’s 29th (!) album Fever Longing Still is a modern twist on the contemporary Paul Kelly formula. An “attempt to present all kinds of love songs into one forty minute album”, it features his devoted band, vividly drawn characters, and a mature sort of melancholy. Paul performs live in The Music Show studio and talks to Andy about the album, his community of great and often young collaborators, and the How To Make Gravy film. Amanda Brown is the recipient of this year’s Don Banks Music Aw...
Nov 30, 2024•54 min
From the very first shot of John Travolta strutting his stuff down a busy New York street, Saturday Night Fever is an iconic film, and the music is even more iconic. Well, the five Bee Gees’ tracks that occupied side A are anyway—don’t get music writer Clinton Walker started on the ‘highway robbery’ of making fans pay for a double-album just to get those songs! Clinton Walker brings disco fever to The Music Show and explains the Australianness of the film and its soundtrack, thanks in large part...
Nov 24, 2024•54 min
JADE Ensemble are four Brisbane-based musicians who compose and improvise across musical styles: Wakka Wakka man and didgeridoo player David Williams, Japanese koto master Takako Haggarty, Nepalese tabla virtuoso Dheeraj Shrestha and guitarist/composer Anthony Garcia. Anthony and Takako join Andrew ahead of a performance at Brisbane Powerhouse next week to share how each member contributes equally to the group’s unique sound world while retaining their strong cultural identities. Dharug composer...
Nov 23, 2024•54 min
Jerron Paxton’s music sounds like it could have been unearthed from a time capsule buried in the 1920s or 30s. His new album of original songs, Things Done Changed, finds the multi-instrumentalist playing guitar, banjo, piano and harmonica across blues, folk, ragtime and old-time Black music styles. He tells Andy about being glued to the radio as a young child, his deep love of acoustic instruments, and the recipe for his grandmother’s salmon court bouillon. Chloe Kim has been on The Music Show ...
Nov 17, 2024•54 min
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 performed in hundreds of halls and pubs around Australia, and is on a mission to visit at least one new...
Nov 16, 2024•54 min
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 English, as well as surprising covers of The Beatles and Michael Jackson. Melbourne-based Affinity Quarte...
Nov 10, 2024•54 min
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 traditional song and ceremony and then singing hymns in church after being removed from her family. Kank...
Nov 09, 2024•54 min
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 for the likes of Missy Higgins, John Butler and Kate Miller-Heidke, Elana also reflects on the high...
Nov 03, 2024•54 min
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 how important it is for him to push the instrument into "uncharted territory" in a time where its mu...
Nov 02, 2024•54 min
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 1940s and 50s, and what he unearthed from the FBI files he gained access to. Aaron J. Leonard's boo...
Oct 27, 2024•54 min
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 Black Aleph are in to perform music live from their debut album Apsides . With a cello, guitar and daf (P...
Oct 26, 2024•54 min
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 anniversary is this year. There’s more to this composer than the experimental (and sometimes chaotic) ...
Oct 20, 2024•54 min
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 ....
Oct 19, 2024•54 min
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 pioneer Ash Wednesday has had a “self-imposed hiatus” from music over the last decade as he was confr...
Oct 13, 2024•54 min
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 friendship. Electronic artist Marcus Whale was last on The Music Show when he was in year 10, having ...
Oct 12, 2024•54 min
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 this feeling well after touring last year’s ARIA-nominated album Light, Dark, Light Again. And she rece...
Oct 06, 2024•54 min
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 Neilson Sings Nelson. From a childhood singing in the travelling Neilson Family Band to a career that’s pu...
Oct 05, 2024•54 min
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 apart the music and lyrics on her brand new album Now In A Minute. British cellist Steven Isserlis retur...
Sep 29, 2024•54 min
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 of Alter State - a Deaf and Disability-led arts festival in Melbourne. Sir Donald Runnicles is the P...
Sep 28, 2024•54 min
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 touring; free of the constraints of a major label contract and determined to do things on her terms. And s...
Sep 22, 2024•54 min
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 Epic of Gilgamesh, as summarised by composer Jack Symonds, who’s taken on the tale for its first En...
Sep 21, 2024•54 min
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, love and finding community on the fringes. Jazz drummer Laurence Pike’ s new album is called The U...
Sep 15, 2024•54 min
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, atmospheric imagining of her last flight. Laurie returns to The Music Show, with frequent contributions f...
Sep 14, 2024•54 min
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 adoration and no small amount of the cursing on this episode of The Music Show. Danaë Killian, who i...
Sep 08, 2024•54 min
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-releasing her old albums for the streaming generation. How do you make historical speeches something that pe...
Sep 07, 2024•54 min
