Composer Andrew Ford presents The Music Show on ABC Radio National. His books include Try Whistling This, Illegal Harmonies: Music in the Modern Age and, most recently, The Shortest History of Music.
Books & arts
Peter Sculthorpe, a composer in Australia
Andrew Ford
11 August 2014
Andrew Ford reflects on the man and his music
Books & arts
Messiaen’s children
Andrew Ford
4 March 2014
From Karlheinz Stockhausen to Lalo Schifrin, Olivier Messiaen taught his students how to be themselves
Books & arts
What the composer owes the writer
Andrew Ford
10 October 2013
Andrew Ford on the challenge of combining words and music
Books & arts
Benjamin Britten’s voice
Andrew Ford
16 May 2013
Much of Britten’s vocal music was written for Peter Pears — and that creates quite a challenge for modern interpreters
From the archive
Margaret Thatcher and the moral neutrality of art
Andrew Ford
10 April 2013
The soundtracks of other people’s lives can be unsettling
Books & arts
More than the sum of their parts
Andrew Ford
26 October 2012
Nearly 200 years after Beethoven composed the first song cycle, Paul Kelly has unveiled two – an album and a performance at the Melbourne Festival – writes Andrew Ford
Books & arts
Why we need music
Andrew Ford
8 May 2012
The most abstract of our arts is also one of the things that defines our humanity
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