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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).
See also: the Books page.
Ox Life for viola
and double bass
March 2008. On March 22, 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.
A Singing Quilt
for Wingecarribee
 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.
A Singing Quilt is commissioned by Wingecarribee Shire Council with financial assistance from Regional Arts ACT through STARTS (Southern Tablelands Arts). The first performance, involving local choirs and Gary France's ensemble DRUMatiX from the ANU School of Music in Canberra, all conducted by the composer, will take place at Bundanoon Hall in the Southern Highlands on Saturday 1 November.
 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.
'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, held this year in Verona. 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.
Meanwhile more concert performances of Elegy are in the pipeline for 2008. In the concert version of Elegy in a Country Graveyard, although many of the sounds (including the speaking voices) are identical to the radio piece, the choir and brass band play live.
The photograph below was taken at the conclusion of the first live performance of the piece at Arts in the Valley, at the village hall in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, in April 2007. The composer conducted the Berry Court House Choir and Southern Highlands Concert Band.
For photos of the Robertson graveyard, see the cemetery gallery (pop-up window).
Performance of 'Elegy' at the Arts in the Valley festival. Photo © Ray Moxon.
A Folly for Michael
Kieran Harvey
September 2007. Michael Kieran Harvey will give the first performance of Andrew Ford's Folly for solo piano in Hobart on 11 October 2007.
To compose some new variations on the 16th-century melody, 'La Folia', could certainly seem like folly, given that the world already has more than 300 sets of variations on that tune. But Ford's piece is also especially virtuosic (when Michael Kieran Harvey commissions a piece he likes to tell the composer, 'Make it really hard') so that anyone embarking upon learning this particular set of variations would need to be slightly crazy in the first place.
Ford's other, recent piano pieces include Thin Air, for the 2008 Sydney International Piano Competition, and Broadway Boogie Woogie (score available for free download, see below). Michael Kieran Harvey has recently recorded Broadway Boogie Woogie for release on the Move label.
The first bars of Folly (2007):
Bagpipe Music
(for Louis MacNeice)
September 2007. Bagpipe Music for harp and recorder, commissioned by harpist Marshall McGuire, was given its first performance in the Utzon Room concert series at the Sydney Opera House.
 McGuire is the curator of this series, but he also performed in the world premiere of Bagpipe Music on 23 September. The piece was written for McGuire and recorder virtuoso, Genevieve Lacey – specifically for her tenor and alto ganassi recorders – and the title alludes not only to the presence of the drones, Scotch snaps and jig-like rhythmic patterns that dominate the piece, but also to the poem of the same name by Louis MacNeice. The centenary of MacNeice's birth falls in 2007, and Ford's Bagpipe Music is dedicated to the poet's memory.
Sydney Symphony
to premiere Headlong
June 2007. On Wednesday 1st August, Jeffrey Tate will conduct the Sydney Symphony in the world premiere of Andrew Ford's Headlong. Commissioned by the SSO for its 75th anniversary season, the seven-minute piece consists of a single melodic line which ricochets around the different sections of the orchestra, generating an ever-changing harmonic context for itself.
Essentially celebratory in spirit, Headlong contains many solos and showcases each section – though especially the brass. There will be four performances in all in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House (see Performances 2007).
Pictured: extract of the manuscript of Headlong.
Elegy in a Country Graveyard
on the Internet
 June 2007. On Saturday 28th July, ABC Radio National will broadcast Andrew McLennan's documentary Elegy about the composing of Elegy in a Country Graveyard. McLennan, who as producer worked on the piece with composer Andrew Ford, visited Robertson in the NSW Southern Highlands, where Ford lives and the graveyard is situated.
The documentary will be broadcast in Into the Music (Saturday 28th July at 17.05, Friday 3rd August at 15.05) and for one month following, it will be possible to download Elegy in a Country Graveyard for free from the Into the Music website.
Commissioned with funding from the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts and ABC Radio, Ford’s Elegy evokes the cemetery at Robertson, in the NSW Southern Highlands, with voices, instruments and a backing track of pre-recorded sounds. The live version of the piece was premiered in April 2007 in the inaugural Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival.
For more photos of the Robertson cemetery, see : Robertson cemetery photo gallery
Scenes from Bruegel
at the Totally Huge New Music Festival 2007
 April 2007. This year’s Totally Huge New Music Festival in Perth features two of Andrew Ford’s works. The Stump-Linshalm duo will play Snatches of Old Lauds (2002) on two bass clarinets, while Brett Dean will conduct members of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in the Australian premiere of Scenes from Bruegel (2006).
The piece for chamber orchestra and pre-recorded sounds was jointly commissioned for WASO and the New Juilliard Ensemble, which gave the world premiere at New York’s Lincoln Center in April 2006. THNMF runs from 20 April – 6 May 2007. (Pictured: Bruegel's painting Hunters in the Snow.)
See also:
NY premiere of Scenes from Bruegel.
Robertson children in Scenes from Bruegel
Elegy in
a Country Graveyard
at the inaugural Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival
April 2007. On Sunday 22nd April, the inaugural Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival concludes with the world premiere of Andrew Ford’s Elegy in a Country Graveyard. Commissioned with funding from the New South Wales Ministry of the Arts and ABC Radio, Ford’s Elegy evokes the cemetery at Robertson, in the NSW Southern Highlands, with voices, instruments and a backing track of pre-ecorded sounds.
The backing track was made at the ABC studios in Sydney and is a collage of weather, birdsong and voices (senior Robertson residents reminiscing about the cemetery and some of those who are buried there) all overlayed above a long, slow-moving sequence of chords played on vibraphone, harmonium, piano and harp. The performance at Kangaroo Valley Hall is by the Courthouse Choir and the Southern Highlands Concert Band, conducted by the composer.
See also: Robertson cemetery photo gallery
A musical birthday party in a cave
 December 2006. In March 2007, Andrew Ford will celebrate his 50th birthday in a cave in central New South Wales.
As part of the 2007 Kowmung Festival, a concert of Ford’s music is scheduled for the afternoon of Sunday 18th March (the birthday itself) in Abercrombie Caves, near Bathurst.
The highlights include Jane Edwards singing Ford’s prize-winning folksong cycle Tales of the Supernatural, Eva Gruesser, concert master of the American Composers Orchestra, in the Australian premiere of War and Peace, for violin and percussion, and bass clarinettist Catherine McCorkill playing Snatches of Old Lauds over a drone from deep within the cave. Ford himself will introduce the pieces.
Full program details will be available soon from the Kowmung Festival website and booking enquiries can be made by emailing: bookings [at] kowmung.com.au
Photo © Stephen Fearnley.
Four first performances announced for 2007
November 2006. Performances of Andrew Ford’s music in 2007 (now available from the news page) include several world premieres. In April, Arts in the Valley, the new festival at Kangaroo Valley in New South Wales, features two premieres in two days. Yvonne Kenny will sing Chimney-sweepers, Ford’s setting of Shakespeare’s words from Cymbeline, ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’, and the composer himself will conduct the first performance of Elegy in a Country Graveyard with the members of local choirs and the Southern Highlands Concert Band.
 The graveyard in question is at Robertson, in the NSW Southern Highlands, where Ford lives. (See also the Robertson Cemetery photo gallery) Composed with the assistance of the NSW Ministry for the Arts and ABC Radio, Elegy draws on environmental sounds and the speaking voices of local Robertson residents. Also in April, at Perth’s Totally Huge New Music Festival, Brett Dean will conduct the Australian premiere of Scenes from Bruegel with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. One of the works composed during Ford’s two-year Australia Council Fellowship, it was first performed by the New Juilliard Ensemble at New York’s Lincoln Center in April 2006.
In May, clarinettist Catherine McCorkill and other members of the Australia Ensemble will premiere Ford’s clarinet quintet, Oma kodu, while in August the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Jeffrey Tate will give the first four performances of the Ford’s new orchestral work, Headlong.
Pictured: The Robertson Cemetery (click for a larger image).
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Performances 2007
January 7:
Fear no more . . . , Gabriella Smart (piano), Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide
January 12: world premiere
And now, Merlyn Quaife (soprano), Stephen Delaney (piano), Neuer Konzertsaal, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna, Austria
January 28:
The Armed Man, Claire Edwardes (percussion), St Bernards Church, Batehaven, NSW
March 14:
The Unquiet Grave, Roger Benedict (viola), Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Gill, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
March 15:
The Unquiet Grave, Roger Benedict (viola), Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Gill, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
March 18:
Snatches of Old Lauds; The Birthday of My Life; Palindrome: Jesus Meets St Veronica; War and Peace; Sad Jigs; Tales of the Supernatural, Jane Edwards (singer), Catherine McCorkill (clarinet, bass clarinet), Eva Gruesser (violin), Daryl Pratt (percussion), Kowmung Music Ensemble, Abercrombie Caves, near Bathurst, NSW
March 24:
The Armed Man, Claire Edwardes (percussion), Town Hall, Armidale, NSW
March 27:
War and Peace ('March' only), Miki Tsunoda (violin), Claire Edwardes (percussion), BMW Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne
April 15:
The Birthday of My Life, Jane Sheldon (soprano), Genevieve Lang (harp),
Kincoppal - Rose Bay, Sydney
April 21: world premiere
Chimney-sweepers, Yvonne Kenny (soprano), Andrea Katz (piano), Arts in the Valley, Marquee, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
April 21:
Extended Radiance, Alice Giles (electroacoustic harp), Arts in the Valley,
Uniting Church, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
April 22:
Like Icarus ascending, Barbara Jane Gilby (violin), Arts in the Valley, The
Copper House, Kangaroo Valley NSW
April 22: world premiere
Elegy in a Country Graveyard, Court House Choir, Southern Highlands Concert Band conducted by Andrew Ford, Arts in the Valley Festival, Kangaroo Valley Hall, Kangaroo Valley, NSW
April 23:
Snatches of Old Lauds, Petra Stump & Heinz-Peter Linshalm (bass clarinets),
Totally Huge New Music Festival, Music Auditorium, WAAPA, Edith Cowan
University, Perth
April 24:
Snatches of Old Lauds, Petra Stump & Heinz-Peter Linshalm (bass clarinets),
Totally Huge New Music Festival, Music Auditorium, WAAPA, Edith Cowan
University, Perth
April 28:
Scenes from Bruegel, West Australian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Brett Dean, Totally Huge New Music Festival, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
May 19: world premiere
Oma kodu, Catherine McCorkill (clarinet), Australia Ensemble, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of NSW, Sydney
May 28:
The Waltz Book (excerpts), Vyacheslav Novikov (piano), Międzynarodowy Festival, Centrum Kultury Žydowskiej, Krakow, Poland
June 5:
Oma kodu, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows, Glen Street Theatre,
Forestville, NSW
June 13:
Ringing the Changes, ensamble 3, Conservatorio de las Rosas, Morelia, Mexico
June 16:
Oma kodu, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows, School of Arts, Berry, NSW
June 17:
Oma kodu, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows, Wesley Uniting Church, Wollongong, NSW
June 20:
Oma kodu, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows, St James's Church, Sydney
June 21:
Spinning, Ingrid Culliford (alto flute), San Francisco Bath House, Wellington, New Zealand
June 29:
Swansong, Patricia Pollett (viola), Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Brisbane
July 3:
Swansong, Zhu Yilin (viola), International Viola Society Congress, Elder Hall, Adelaide
July 12:
War and Peace, Miki Tsunoda (violin), Claire Edwardes (percussion), Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Civic Theatre, Townsville, Queensland
July 13:
Oma kodu, Francesco Celata (clarinet), Sydney Soloists, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, Bathurst, NSW
July 14:
Oma kodu, Francesco Celata (clarinet), Sydney Soloists, Orange Civic Theatre, Orange, NSW
August 1: world premiere
Headlong, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
August 2:
Headlong, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
August 3:
Headlong, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
August 4:
Headlong, Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
August 19:
The Unquiet Grave, Patricia Pollett (viola), Bangalow Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Peter Luff
Bangalow Music Festival, A&I Hall, Bangalow, NSW
September 16:
The Birthday of My Life, Jane Edwards (soprano), Genevieve Lang (harp), Town Hall, Hobart
September 23: world premiere
Bagpipe Music, Genevieve Lacey (recorder), Marshall McGuire (harp), Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House, Sydney
September 29:
The Birthday of My Life, Evita Raituma (soprano), Genevieve Lang (harp), Riga Opera Chamber Music Festival, Beletazha Hall, Opera House, Riga, Latvia
October 6: world premiere
Epithalamium (wp of version for mezzo-soprano and string quartet), Snatches of Old Lauds, Jenny Duck-Chong (mezzo-soprano), Diana Springford (bass clarinet), Halcyon, The Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney
October 11: world premiere
Folly, Michael Kieran Harvey (piano), Recital Hall, University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music, Hobart
November 18:
A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard (String Quartet No 2), Grainger Quartet, Government House, Sydney
December 16:
'Corpus Christi Carol' (from Wassails and Lullabies), The Corinthian Singers of Adelaide, conductor Christie Anderson, Lessons and Carols by Candlelight,
Langmeil Church, Tanunda, South Australia
December 19:
'Corpus Christi Carol' (from Wassails and Lullabies), The Corinthian Singers of Adelaide, conductor Christie Anderson, Lessons and Carols by Candlelight,
St John's Church, Halifax Street, Adelaide
December 22:
'Corpus Christi Carol' (from Wassails and Lullabies), The Corinthian Singers of Adelaide, conductor Christie Anderson, Lessons and Carols by Candlelight,
St Peter's Anglican Cathedral, North Adelaide
Performances 2008
January 23:
Est il paradis?, Sarah Leonard (soprano), Gemini, Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
January 25:
The Waltz Book (excerpts), David Vance (piano), Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna, Austria
February 23:
Bagpipe Music, Genevieve Lacey (recorders), Marshall McGuire (harp), Festival of Perth, Laurence Wilson Art Gallery, University of WA, Perth
March 15:
The Waltz Book (excerpts), George Lopez (piano), Kowmung Music Festival, Laureldale Farm, near Oberon, NSW
March 25: world premiere
Chorales from an Ox Life, Heidi von Bernewitz (viola), Robert Nairn (double bass), Esber Recital Hall, Penn State University, PA, USA
April 4:
A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard (String Quartet No 2), Grainger Quartet, Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival, Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide
April 11:
A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard (String Quartet No 2), Grainger Quartet, Aurora Festival, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown, NSW
April 17:
The Armed Man, Claire Edwardes (percussion), Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney
May 13:
Oma kodu, Catherine McCorkill (clarinet), Australia Ensemble, Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of NSW, Sydney
May 16:
A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard (String Quartet No 2), Grainger Quartet, Canberra International Music Festival, National Library of Australia, Canberra
May 16: world premiere
Golden Slumbers, Iva Bittova (voice), Lisa Moore (piano), Canberra International Music Festival / Sounds Alive, The Street Theatre, Canberra
May 23:
Golden Slumbers, Iva Bittova (voice), Lisa Moore (piano), Bennett's Lane, Melbourne
June 13: world premiere
The Tears of Geertje Dircx,
Petra Stump & Heinz-Peter Linshalm (clarinets), Alte Schmiede, Vienna, Austria
July 21: world premiere
Thin Air, Quarter finalists, Sydney International Piano Competition, Seymour Centre, Sydney
July 22:
Thin Air, Quarter finalists, Sydney International Piano Competition, Seymour Centre, Sydney
August 3:
Chamber Concerto No 4, New Juilliard Ensemble conducted by Joel Sachs, MoMA Summergarden, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
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