Rembrandt's painting 'The Slaughtered Ox'
Ox Life for viola
and double bass
March 2008. On March 25, violist Heidi von Bernewitz and bassist Robert Nairn will premiere Andrew Ford's Chorales from an Ox Life at Penn State University. The gently obsessive nine minute duo was developed from an early sketch for Ford's forthcoming opera, Rembrandt's Wife, its title making reference to Rembrandt's 1655 painting of the butchered carcass of an ox. Bernewitz and Nairn will also record the duo for Tall Poppies.
The opera itself, with a libretto by Sue Smith, has been commissioned by Victorian Opera – the new Melbourne company's first full commission – with its premiere slated for 2009.
The Music Show 
book
is out now
March 2008. Talking to Kinky and Karlheinz is the title of a new book of interviews from ABC Books in which, as the subtitle has it, '170 musicians get vocal on The Music Show'. 
Ford has presented this radio program – something of a ABC Saturday morning institution – since 1995, and the new book, edited by Anni Heino, brings together conversations with guests such as John Adams, Victoria de los Ángeles, Robyn Archer, Pierre Boulez, David Byrne, Harry Connick Jr, Bob Geldof, k.d.lang, Tom Lehrer, Yehudi Menuhin, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mitsuko Uchida.
Visit the website of The Music Show, buy the book online or visit the special Online Companion to Talking to Kinky and Karlheinz.
The Music Show website:
Listen online:
Dots on the Landscape is a six-part oral history of Australian classical music.
Music and Fashion casts a far wider net, the programs ranging from the 12th-century composers of Notre Dame to Cyndi Lauper, from Andrea Bocelli to Elvis Presley, and from electronica to the Elizabethan volta.
A wide selection of CDs with music by Andrew Ford is available from the Buywell online CD store. For a full list of CDs, please see also the CD subpage.
Some of Andrew Ford's books are no longer available in bookshops. Contact Andrew directly to purchase a copy of In Defence of Classical Music or Speaking in Tongues - the Songs of Van Morrison (AUD 25 + postage). For a full list of books, please see the Books subpage.
'Elegy' shortlisted
for Prix Italia 2007
October 2007. Andrew Ford's Elegy in a Country Graveyard was one of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's offical entries for the 2007 Prix Italia. The judges liked the piece, one of them referring to it as a "radio requiem", and together with entries from Radio France and Radio Belgrade, Elegy made it to the final shortlist, ultimately losing out to Jonathan Pontier's work for SRF.
Working with producer Andrew McLennan and sound engineer, Russell Stapleton, Andrew Ford made this piece at the ABC's Sydney studios in October 2006 and February 2007.
February 2008. Andrew Ford is presently working on a new work for choir and percussion, A Singing Quilt. Taking words from interviews with people throughout the NSW Southern Highlands, the piece aims to present a musical representation of the look and feel of the place. In addition to the singing and percussion (drums, bells and gongs to the fore), the piece also weaves in the sound of the original interviews, so that the spoken words can be heard alongside their sung transformations. 
