The 2020 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards have been announced, with Andrew Ford among recipients. As a nod to the special circumstances of the pandemic year, the prize money was distributed equally between eight artists/groups, instead of awarding the usual three prizes (the Group Award, the Individual Award and the Facilitator’s Prize). The following all took […]
General news
The Music Show turns 30
ABC Radio National’s long running weekend program, The Music Show, celebrated its 30th anniversary in February 2021 with a special show of highlights from the past three decades. Andrew Ford presented the program, as he has for the past 26 years. Listen here. Read an article about the show by Andrew Ford.
Lotte Betts-Dean sings ‘Gone’ from Red Dirt Hymns
Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano) and Sean Shibe (guitar) performing ‘Gone’ from Red Dirt Hymns at the Royal Overseas League in London, November 2020.
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 […]
Bright Shiners and Blue Poles
Steel City Strings will dust off two short works by Andrew Ford for their first concerts of 2021. Both pieces were commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Blues Poles as part of Manhattan Epiphanies, Bright Shiners for a national tour with Pekka Kuusisto in 2009. Individual pieces in Manhattan Epiphanies have subsequently been been taken […]
Red Dirt Hymns
Recently, I’ve revived an old idea that I’ve called Red Dirt Hymns. A few years ago, it came to nothing, but it seems to have found its time. Simple songs – simple to sing, not simple to write – that may yet add up to something larger as a pattern emerges. I’ve commissioned some of Australia’s […]
A statement on The Music Show
A statement about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on music, musicians and their audiences. The Music Show, ABC Radio National, 21 March 2020 Only last week on The Music Show I was suggesting you check to see if the gig or concert for which you had tickets was still going ahead. Seems like another […]
The Song Remains the Same – a new book & playlist
A new book The Song Remains the Same – 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments and Lullabies, will be released on 2 December. The book can be preordered on the Black Inc. website, and the accompanying playlist of the songs discussed can be accessed via Spotify. Often today, the word ‘song’ is used to describe […]
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 […]
Two works by Ford shortlisted at 2019 Art Music Awards
Two of Andrew Ford’s works were finalists in the 2019 Art Music Awards, organised by the Australian Music Centre and APRA-AMCOS. In a bumper year for nominations, The Drowners was a finalist for vocal/choral work of the year (along with music by Rachel Bruerville, Alice Chance and Damien Ricketson, whose opera The Howling Girls took […]