The Music Show ABC listen

Andrew is at the Canberra International Music Festival, where we get to catch up with an Australian who lives in the UK, a Belgian who tours the world, and another Belgian who lives in Australia.

Lotte Betts-Dean, Aussie mezzo-soprano now based in London, makes a trip home to perform a series of form-expanding vocal works from composers like Michael Finnissy, one of the masters of so-called "new complexity". 

Belgian jazz pianist Bram de Looze invites The Music Show into the Belgian Embassy where he's staying with the two resident llamas to talk about where improvisation and composition meet for him, and what he's taken from jazz idols like Hank Jones, Keith Jarrett and Thelonious Monk. 

And CIMF Artistic Director Roland Peelman looks back on his ten years leading the festival, the joys and tribulations of wearing multiple hats, and the particular way the city of Canberra has shaped the festival. 

Look out for Bram De Looze on ABC Jazz’s Jazztrack Live in June.

Music heard in the show:

Title: Spotting Gateways
Artist: Bram de Looze
Live in Canberra – courtesy of ABC Jazz

Title: Blessed Be I
Artist: Lotte Betts-Dean
Composer: Michael Finnissy
Album: Alternative Readings
Label: Divine Art MEX77102

Title: Botany Bay
Artist: Lotte Betts-Dean, Joseph Havlat
Composer: Michael Finnissy
Album: Alternative Readings
Label: Divine Art MEX77102

Title: parallaxis forma
Artist: Lotte Betts Dean, Explore Ensemble
Composer: Catherine Lamb
Album: 3 Compositions for Voices and Ensemble
Label: Another Timbre at-215CD

Title: Bow
Artist: Bram De Looze
Composer: Bram De Looze
Album: Spotting Gateways
Label: Independent release

Title: Monk’s Mood
Artist: Bram De Looze, Joey Baron, Robin Verheyen
Composer: Thelonious Monk
Album: MiXMONK
Label: UCJ

Technical production by Simon Branthwaite
Recorded on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, produced on Gadigal and Gundungurra Country.

Rainbow Chan returns to The Music Show to discuss her latest audio-visual project, The Bridal Lament. In an attempt to preserve her mother's mother tongue, Rainbow has spent the last five years researching and learning the Weitou language, an endangered Cantonese dialect, through learning traditional bridal laments. Rainbow talks to Andy about the defiant tradition of performing these laments in the face of arranged marriages, and her process of learning the language through song from the 'grannies' preserving it. 

You might think Broadway composer George Gershwin and pioneer of 12-tone music Arnold Schoenberg would have had little in common, but when Gershwin arrived in Beverly Hills in August 1936, he found Schoenberg (who had fled Nazi Germany in 1933), was his neighbour. Gershwin was in the last year of his life, but during that time the two composers played tennis together every week. They also admired each other’s music - and Schoenberg admired Gershwin’s business acumen. When Gershwin asked Schoenberg for lessons, the older man enquired how much Gershwin earned, suggesting he should the one taking lessons from Gershwin. When George Met Arnold is the title of a film/concert from pianist Simon Tedeschi and conductor/violist Roger Benedict with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and they’ll be in the music studio to talk about it.

Plus an exclusive live performance from Yirinda via our comrades at Awaye.

This week’s show was recorded on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country and produced on Gadigal Land.

Technical production by Simon Branthwaite.

Bringing huge amounts of energy, musicianship and a sense of humour to the Australian folk scene is Apolline. They chat to Ce Benedict about their trio's unusual line up (fiddle, cello, bass), their approach to arranging and layering tunes, and having varied musical influences—from jazz to Scandi folk and Eurovision. They'll also perform two sets of tunes live in The Music Show studio.

American jazz pianist and singer Blossom Dearie would have turned 100 this week. We revisit a delightful interview from 1995 (one of the first Andrew Ford ever recorded), where he gets a strong telling off for suggesting that she played chords like Thelonious Monk. 

And we hear new music from Tessa Bird, Cedric Burnside, and Allysha Joy.

Norwegian trumpet player Tine Thing Helseth returns to The Music Show as she prepares to play with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She talks to Andy about the peculiarities of trumpet concertos, about composers writing for her versus writing for her instrument, and about expanding her musical life to include playing and writing.

Maanyung is a proud Aboriginal man with strong connections to Gumbaynggir and Yaegl nations. His songwriting comes from Language and Country – he’s a surfer, a youth worker and a songwriter and he’s released a string of singles in the last few years. He’s on The Music Show to talk about saltwater, sand, and sound.

Plus new music from Charlie Grey and Joseph Peach.

The Music Show is produced on Gadigal and Gundungurra Land

Technical production by Roi Huberman and Tim Symonds

It's been forty years since the 1984–5 United Kingdom miners' strike and The Music Show has dug into the archives for a special program looking at the role that music played in this political, industrial and personal struggle. From Peggy Seeger to Paul Weller, Billy Bragg to brass bands—there's music supporting the striking miners, songs tormenting strikebreakers and tracks referencing (and sometimes sampling) National Union of Mineworkers leader Arthur Scargill and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia John Street guides us through the history and music of this divisive time, plus we hear interviews from the ABC archives with folklorist A L Lloyd, singer songwriter Billy Bragg, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, folk singers Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and composer David Lumsdaine.

For over fifty years, Sir Andrew Davis (1944–2024) was one of the world's busiest conductors, He conducted in the opera house and the concert hall and his repertoire ranged from Bach to Birtwistle. In the mid 1970s, he became chief conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, then took on Glyndebourne Opera, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago - always for long stretches. From 2012 to 2019 he was chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and thereafter the orchestra's conductor laureate. He died this week at the age of 80, and we remember him in the company of Benjamin Northey, the MSO's principal conductor, and listen to excerpts from some of Sir Andrew's Music Show interviews.  

Martha Wainwright returns to Australia, playing old and new songs. She dips into her family’s discography as well as her experiences of rebirth over the last few years in her latest album, Love Will Be Reborn, which was accompanied by a memoir that looks back at a life of joy, grief and family.

Martha Wainwright is on tour around Australia:

Wednesday, May 8 – Princess Theatre, Brisbane, QLD
Thursday, May 9 – Anita’s Theatre, Wollongong, NSW
Friday, May 10 – City Recital Hall, Sydney, NSW
Saturday, May 11 – Civic Theatre, Newcastle, NSW
Sunday, May 12 – Blue Mountains Theatre, Blue Mountains, NSW
Tuesday, May 14 – The Gov, Adelaide, SA
Thursday, May 16 – Odeon Theatre, Hobart, TAS
Friday, May 17 – Recital Centre, Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, May 18 – Capital Theatre, Bendigo, VIC

Music heard in the show:

Title: Symphony No. 9 in E minor
Composer: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Artist: Bergen Philharmonic, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)
Album: Symphony No. 9
Label: Chandos CHSA5180

Title: Your Rockaby
Composer: Mark-Anthony Turnage
Artist: Martin Robertson (saxophone), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)
Album: Turnage: Your Rockaby; Night Dances; Dispelling The Fears
Label: Argo 4525982

Title: Enigma Variations; x. Nimrod
Composer: Edward Elgar
Artist: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)
Album: The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
Label: Warner Classics 2564660472

Title: The Mask of Orpheus; 3 Orphic Hymns – Hymn of Catharsis
Composer: Harrison Birtwistle
Artist: BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Martyn Brabbins (conductor), Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)
Album: The Mask of Orpheus
Label: NMC NMCD050

Title: Brigg Fair (An English Rhapsody)
Composer: Frederic Delius
Artist: Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)
Album: Delius Orchestral Works
Label: Chandos CHAN10742

Title: Love Will Be Reborn
Composer: Martha Wainwright
Artist: Martha Wainwright
Album: Love Will Be Reborn
Label: Pheromone Records

Title: Dinner at Eight
Composer: Rufus Wainwright
Artist: Martha Wainwright
Album: Love Will Be Reborn
Label: Pheromone Records

Title: Tell My Sister
Composer: Kate McGarrigle
Artist: Martha Wainwright
Album: Love Will Be Reborn
Label: Pheromone Records

Title: Being Right
Composer: Martha Wainwright
Artist: Martha Wainwright
Album: Love Will Be Reborn
Label: Pheromone Records

Title: There Is Power In A Union
Composer: Billy Bragg
Artist: Billy Bragg
Album: Talking With the Taxman About Poetry
Label: Cooking Vinyl COOKCD304

The Music Show is produced on Gadigal and Gundungurra Country

Technical production by John Jacobs