Composer, writer and broadcaster Andrew Ford will leave ABC Radio National’s The Music Show after 32 years of presenting. He will wrap up his role on the program at the end of the year to focus on composition full-time, with a new presenter to be announced later in 2026.

“For the past 32 years, when I haven’t been a musician asking questions of other musicians, I’ve been writing my own music or writing about music,” said Ford.

Andrew Ford. Photo supplied

“Composing requires long, uninterrupted stretches of time and I’ve found it harder each week to tear myself away from the manuscript paper for The Music Show. I still love doing the program and working with its excellent producers, but the time has come to pick a lane. From the end of the year, I’ll be a full-time composer. Maybe there’ll be some new books, too.”

Started in 1991 by producers Maureen Cooney and Penny Lomax with host musician Christopher Lawrence, The Music Show examines “all kinds of music and all kinds of musicians”, spanning  jazz, opera, hip-hop, folk and beyond.

Ford took over hosting duties from Julie Steiner in February 1995, and has interviewed artists including Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sonny Rollins, Laurie Anderson and Wynton Marsalis across the show’s history.

“When I’d notched up 20 years, my former colleague Tim Ritchie estimated that I’d interviewed in excess of 6,000 musicians. By now it must be a fair few more,” wrote Ford in 2021 for the show’s 30th anniversary year.

In 2016, Ford was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his “service to music composition, and as an author and radio broadcaster”. He has penned eleven books; his latest, The Shortest History of Music, was published in 2024.

Across an internationally renowned compositional career, Ford has been awarded the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize, the Albert H Maggs Prize and a Green Room Award. In 2025, he signed to Wise Music.

“Andrew has made The Music Show one of the great meeting places for musicians and music lovers,” said Ben Latimer, ABC’s Director Audio.

“For more than three decades he has brought intelligence, warmth and a rare depth of musical understanding to conversations across genres and generations. We wish him all the very best as he steps away from the program, although I suspect he will be no less busy.”

More about Ford’s departure from The Music Show can be found here.