Andrew Ford (composer)


Andrew Ford is an English-born Australian composer, writer, and radio presenter, known for The Music Show on ABC Radio National.
WWW andrewford.net.au

Early life and education

Andrew Ford was born in 1957 in Liverpool, UK.
He attended St Olave's Grammar School in Orpington, Kent, then studied at Lancaster University with Edward Cowie and John Buller. As a student, a meeting with Sir Michael Tippett had a profound influence on him, when he told him "to forget about musical systems and trust his instincts".

Career

Ford was Fellow in Music at Bradford University from 1978 to 1982.
After moving to Australia, he lectured at the School of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong, NSW, from 1983 to 1995, and during this time earned a doctorate for his thesis on musical word setting from Elvis Costello to Elliott Carter.
Ford was composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council for the Arts for 2005 to 2006. He was appointed composer-in-residence at the Australian National Academy of Music in 2009.

Other activities

He has written widely on music and published or co-written eleven books. For the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he wrote, presented and co-produced the radio series Illegal Harmonies, Dots on the Landscape, Music and Fashion, Earth Dances and Three Front Doors a Paddock
Since 1995 he has presented The Music Show on ABC Radio National.

Recognition and awards

APRA / Art Music Awards

The APRA Awards are presented annually from 1982 by the Australasian Performing Right Association. They include the Art Music Awards which are distributed by APRA and the Australian Music Centre. These awards include:

Selected works

Stage works

  • Poe, opera
  • Whispers for tenor and chamber orchestra
  • Casanova Confined for baritone and backing track
  • Night and Dreams: The Death of Sigmund Freud for tenor and backing track
  • Rembrandt's Wife, opera
  • Peter Pan, children's opera, for Gondwana Choirs

Orchestral

  • Concerto for Orchestra
  • The Big Parade
  • Manhattan Epiphanies for string orchestra
  • The Furry Dance
  • Scenes from Bruegel for chamber orchestra
  • Headlong, for 75th birthday of Sydney Symphony Orchestra
  • Symphony
  • Bright Shiners for string orchestra
  • Blitz for orchestra, chorus and pre-recorded voices
  • Big Bang for orchestra
  • The Meaning of Trees for orchestra, for Australian Youth Orchestra, premiered 2022
  • The Carnival of the Insects for string orchestra and narrator, poems by John Kinsella

Concertos

  • Piano Concerto: Imaginings
  • The Great Memory for cello and orchestra
  • The Unquiet Grave for viola and chamber orchestra
  • Raga for electric guitar and orchestra, for Zane Banks

Vocal and choral

Ensemble

  • Chamber Concerto No 3: In Constant Flight for solo violin and ensemble
  • Ringing the Changes for piccolo, bass clarinet and piano
  • Pastoral for string octet
  • Tattoo for 12 timpani and 4 pianos
  • Icarus Drowning
  • Chamber Concerto No. 4
  • Sad Jigs for string quintet
  • A Reel, a Fling and a Ghostly Galliard
  • Oma kodu for clarinet and string quartet
  • Nine Fantasies about Brahms for piano trio
  • On Winter's Traces for piccolo, bass clarinet, piano and string quartet for the 30th anniversary of the Australia Ensemble
  • The Rising for the Black Dyke Band
  • The Scattering of Light for piano quartet commissioned to mark the centenary of the University of Queensland
  • String Quartet No 3 for the Brodsky Quartet
  • String Quartet No 4 for The Noise
  • String Quartet No 5 for the Australian String Quartet
  • Uproar for 11 trombones and four bass drums
  • Common Ground for two string quartets
  • Contradance for 11 players
  • String Quartet No 6 for the Flinders Quartet
  • Scenes from Streeton for Arcadia Winds
  • String Quartet No 7: Eden Ablaze for the Brodsky Quartet and William Barton
  • Machnamh: ruminations on a tune by Seán Ó Riada for the Brodsky Quartet and William Barton

Instrumental

  • Like Icarus ascending for solo violin
  • Swansong for solo viola
  • Spinning for solo alto flute
  • The Very End of Harvest for viola and piano
  • The Waltz Book
  • War and Peace for violin and percussion
  • Chorales from an Ox Life for viola and double bass
  • Folly for solo piano
  • You Must Sleep, but I Must Dance for viola and percussion
  • On Reflection for two pianos
  • Once upon a time there were two brothers...for flute and voice
  • Hook for solo vibraphone
  • In My Solitude for solo viola
  • Confused Alarms for horn and piano
  • Irish Tunes for piano
  • Deep Riffs for electric guitar and looping pedal

Radiophonic

  • Deirdre of the Sorrows
  • Elegy in a Country Graveyard
  • ''Untuning the Sky''

Books