Wise Music G. Schirmer Australia and Andrew Ford have signed a publishing agreement, initially for approximately thirty titles in all genres. These include the operas, Rembrandt’s Wife and Peter Pan, orchestral works including The Meaning of Trees, and a range of chamber, instrumental, vocal and choral music. Photo: Andrew Ford and Jane English, managing director […]
Featured news
The Shortest History of Music
Andrew Ford’s new book, The Shortest History of Music was published on 30 July 2024 by Black Inc. A UK/Commonwealth edition followed from Old Street Publishing in October 2024. Picador India published an English-languuage Indian edition in February 2025. A North American edition from The Experiment arrived in May 2025, followed by a UK paperback […]
Luminescence Chamber Singers win award for Red Dirt Hymns
The Canberra Critics’ Circle has named Luminescence Chamber Singers’ performance of Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns as its music highlight of 2024. During the Canberra International Music festival, Luminescence, together with cellist Freya Schack-Arnott and electric guitarist Hilary Geddes, sang 16 of the hymns to a capacity audience in the atrium of the National Museum […]
The Shortest History of Music
Andrew Ford’s new book, The Shortest History of Music was published on 30 July 2024 by Black Inc. A UK/Commonwealth edition followed from Old Street Publishing in October 2024. Picador India published an English-language Indian edition in February 2025. A North American edition from The Experiment is due in May.
How to commission a Red Dirt Hymn
Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns (‘The right idea for strange times’ – Harriet Cunningham, Limelight, March 2021) are a sequence of songs about hope and fear, courage, resilience, forbearance and forgiveness – in fact, the sorts of things hymns have always been about. They have new, specially commissioned lyrics by some of Australia’s finest poets […]
Rembrandt’s Wife – a new production by Opera Australia in 2020
Opera Australia has announced Sydney and Melbourne runs of Andrew Ford and Sue Smith’s opera, Rembrandt’s Wife, for its 2020 season. Commissioned by Victorian Opera and first performed in 2009 under Richard Gill, the new production will star Taryn Fiebig as both the eponymous wife, Saskia, and the painter’s last great muse – his Bathsheba […]
Farewell to Gerald English
The tenor Gerald English (1925-2019) had a long and distinguished career, beginning as a founder member of the Deller Consort in 1950. He sang in some of the first modern performances of Monteverdi’s operas and madrigals, and worked with composers such as Stravinsky and Britten, Tippett, Henze and Berio. In 1977 he founded the Opera […]