The Music Show ABC listen

Indie-rock veterans Deerhoof are set to make their first appearance in Australia in a decade, and drummer Greg Saunier joins us on The Music Show to discuss their journey. With a repertoire spanning nineteen albums and a diverse range of styles, Greg talks to us about politics, conceptual art, and his own foray into solo work for the first time in the band's long career. 

Soprano Anna Fraser sings brand new contemporary opera, renaissance chant, and Schubert… under water. She’s also the curator of the sadly land-based concert IMPOSTO, where her eclectic tastes bring together not only disparate repertoire but disparate composer/performers too – she’s joined by singer Jane Sheldon, baryton player Laura Vaughan, and koto player Satsuki Odamura – and there’s music based on everything from Sylvia Plath to a jellyfish.

And do you remember The Beatles’ 1964 tour of Australia? Beatles superfan and co-author of When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles Australasian Tour 1964 will be joining us to talk about the phenomenon — but we want your memories too! 

Were you at one of 1964 Beatles' concerts? Did you catch a glimpse of them on the street? Send us your memories via email at: musicshow_rn@abc.net.au

Performance details:

Deerhoof

12 June, Brunswick Ballroom, Melbourne, VIC
13 June, VIVID Sydney, Machine Hall, Sydney, NSW
14 June, The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD
15 June, The Jive Bar, Adelaide, SA
16 June, The Milk Bar, Perth, WA

Anna Fraser

14 June, IMPOSTO: Sympathetic Resonance Vibrations, Woodburn Creatives Redfern

Technical production by Bella Tropiano

The Music Show is produced on Gadigal Land and on Gundungurra Country

Ziggy Ramo returns to The Music Show with a new album that’s more than just an album. Human? will be released later this year but right now the only way you can hear it is through QR codes in his book of the same name. 

It’s a new and beautifully contradictory sound for Ziggy, blending folk (with guest vocals from Vonn) and his signature rap, precipitated by Ziggy picking up the guitar for the first time in the wake of his 2021 single Little Things. 

Ziggy joins Andy to talk about the project (which spans the album, the book, and a related exhibition), an exploration of dark histories and big questions. 

Human? A Lie That Has Been Killing Us Since 1788 (the book) is out now via Pantera Press. 

Human? (the album) is out via Ramo Records in July.

Tracks from the album heard in the show:

Banamba

Little Things

April 25 (Black Thoughts and Human? versions)

Sorry

Shame

Human

The Music Show is made on Gadigal and Gundungurra Country

Technical production by Simon Branthwaite on Gadigal Country.

Artist Jeremy Deller first made the connection between acid house music and brass bands back in 1995. The project that emerged, ACID BRASS, brings community bands together in raucous live events. Deller says he was “liberated by brass bands” – since then he’s won the Turner Prize, made conceptual, installation and video art across the world, and represented the UK at the Venice Biennale. Now he brings ACID BRASS to Melbourne’s Rising festival, and he talks to Andy about what music has given his art practice, and what his art has given his music.

Bach’s St John Passion is not his most famous Passion oratorio – often eclipsed by the St Matthew Passion, this earlier work is wilder and more extravagant. John O’Donnell is getting ready to conduct Accademia Arcadia, Ensemble Gombert, and a cast of soloists in a period instrument performance of the Passion to mark its 300th anniversary.

Composer, artist, and archaeologist Victoria Pham joins us on The Music Show to talk about her latest bio-installation Listening Gardens ii - soil fields showing at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Her work crosses the boundaries of music and sound in order to communicate otherwise-unheard symphonies of nature. She leans on her background as a biological anthropologist to create a mushroom opera, an orchestral Boeing 747, and draught conservation plans told through synthesisers. 

Performance dates:

Jeremy Deller

1 - 16 June, ACID BRASS, Rising Festival Melbourne. Full details of free performance locations here.

Bach's St John Passion 

8 + 9 June, Bach's St John Passion, Woodend Winter Arts Festival. St Ambrose Church Templeton St, Woodend.

Victoria Pham

4 May - 23 June, Listening Gardens ii -- Soil Fields, Season One: Terrestrial. Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

Technical production by Simon Branthwaite
 

This episode of the music show was produced on Gadigal Land and on Gundungurra Country

Errollyn Wallen’s memoir Becoming a Composer is a look into the mind of the composer as well as the life of one. Born in Belize but now based in the far-flung north of Scotland, where she sometimes inhabits a lighthouse, she works at a brisk pace, composing prolifically for orchestra, chamber ensemble, choir, and over twenty operas.

Her major public commissions have included music for The Last Night of the Proms, the Paralympic Opening Ceremony, and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and she joins us from her home in the Orkney Islands to talk about Becoming a Composer, and becoming a composer.

Music heard in the show:

Title: Horseplay i. Dark and mysterious
Artist: The Continuum Ensemble/Philip Headlam
Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Album: The Girl In My Alphabet
Label: Avie AV0006

Title: Dervish
Artist: Matthew Sharp (cello), Dominic Harlan (piano)
Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Album: The Girl In My Alphabet
Label: Avie AV0006

Title: Sojourner Truth
Artist: Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Errollyn Wallen (piano)
Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Album: Violin Conversations
Label: Naxos 8574560

Title: Cello Concerto
Artist: Matthew Sharp (cello), Ensemble X, Nicholas Kok
Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Album: Photography
Label: NMC NMCD221

Title: Boom Boom
Artist: Palaver Strings, Nicholas Phan
Composer: Errollyn Wallen
Album: A Change is Gonna Come
Label: Azica Records 71365

The Music Show is made on Gadigal and Gundungurra Country

Technical Production by Simon Branthwaite and Tegan Nicholls

Playwright, screenwriter, and actress Kate Mulvany has been commissioned with the task of writing the lost prologue for the first true English opera, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She joins Andy on The Music Show to chat about getting into the head of the queen of Carthage, and what it was like writing for opera for the first time. 

Independent hip-hop label Elefant Traks has had a huge cultural impact on the Australian music industry, and in 2024 after 26 years they are wrapping up operations. Back in 2018 we chatted to Tim Levinson and L-Fresh the Lion for Elefant Traks 20th birthday, and we're bringing it back for this week's show as the label begins preparations for their farewell concerts.

Plus, a new release of an old tune by Louis Armstrong, recorded live at the BBC. 

Technical production by Tegan Nichols and Simon Branthwaite
This episode of the music show was produced on Gadigal Land and Gundungurra Country.




Performance dates:

Dido and Aeneas by Pinchgut Opera:

30 May, City Recital Hall, Sydney, 7pm
1 June, City Recital Hall, Sydney, 2pm
2 June, City Recital Hall, Sydney, 5pm
3 Jun, City Recital Hall, Sydney, 7pm

Elefant Traks:

26 May, Elefant Traks 25th Anniversary – The Finale, Sydney Opera House, 7:30pm
8 June, Elefant Traks: 25 The Finale, Open Season at the Tivoli Brisbane, 7pm
15 June, Elefant Traks 25th Anniversary – The Finale, Melbourne Recital Centre, 3pm and 7:30pm

Omar Musa is an author, artist, poet, and woodcutter making music and art from Borneo to Brooklyn. He is back in Australia to talk about his latest album The Fullness. His third album touches on the environment, culture, religious identity, and mortality. He creates poetry from a spoken-word background, melding hip-hop, jazz, and electronic sounds with earnest lyricism. 

Gillian Dooley joins us on The Music Show to talk about her latest book She Played and Sang, which explores the music of Jane Austen. From Haydn piano sonatas to Scottish folk songs, Gillian gives us a sense of what not only Elizabeth Bennett and the Dashwoods were playing in their parlour, but also Jane Austen herself. 

Also new music from Leila and Sean Shibe

Performance Dates -- Omar Musa

4 May – 2 June All My Memories Are Mistranslations, Humble House Gallery Canberra, 
2 August ACO Up Close: Omar Musa and Mariel Roberts, ACO Pier 2-3 - The Nielson, 7pm

Gillian Dooley -- She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music, Manchester University Press