Paul O'Grady dies 'unexpectedly' at 67 as tributes pour in for showbiz legend

by Cally Brooks

Camilla joins Paul O'Grady. Watch on YouTube. Click here!

Paul O'Grady has died at the age of 67, his partner has confirmed in a statement. Partner Andre Portasio said the 67-year-old showbiz legend "passed away peacefully but unexpectedly". 

He said in a statement: "It is with great sadness that I inform you that Paul has passed away unexpectedly but peacefully yesterday evening. He will be greatly missed by his loved ones, friends, family, animals and all those who enjoyed his humour, wit and compassion."

Paul O'Grady rose to fame in the 1990s with his iconic scouse drag queen persona Lily Savage, going on to present game show Blankety Blank and other light entertainment programmes.

Later in his career, he went on to host a number of chat shows, and also brought his love of dogs to the screen.

Mr Portasio added: "I know that he would want me to thank you for all the love you have shown him over the years."

He had recently been on tour playing Miss Hannigan in the musical Annie.

Paul O'Grady and his partner Andre Portasio (Image: Getty)

Writing on Instagram a few weeks ago after returning from performing in Newcastle, O'Grady said he was "thoroughly enjoying" playing the role again after so long "especially with a truly amazing and lovely cast".

The broadcaster had also recently left BBC Radio 2 after 14 years, confirming reports it was because he was unhappy about sharing his Sunday afternoon slot.

He was due to present on Boom Radio in less than two weeks time for Easter Sunday.

O'Grady's long-time radio producer Malcolm Prince said he had visited the star at his home on Tuesday afternoon, describing him as "laughing, smiling, and full of life".

Mr Prince posted on Twitter: "He was so proud of Annie, so happy to be back on Boom Radio, and he was looking forward to so many new projects.

"And now he's gone. I can't believe it. We have lost a unique talent - and I've lost a dear friend."

ITV's Lorraine Kelly described O'Grady as a "really special man". "Such sad news. Paul O'Grady - funny, fearless, brave, kind and wise," she tweeted. "Will be sorely missed."

One of O'Grady's most recent TV appearances was last year with Camilla, Queen Consort for a one-off episode of ITV's For The Love of Dogs - a series he helped launch in 2012, following the staff at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, an organisation for which he was an ambassador.

Paul O'Grady worn awards throughout his career (Image: Getty)

O'Grady was born in Birkenhead, on the Wirral, Merseyside, in 1955, to a mother who's maiden name was Savage - which is believed to have inspired his famous drag act.

He began performing as Lily Savage in the 1970s. The drag queen later performed in a solo show that ran for eight years at London's Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and made a name by speaking out about LGBT issues.

Later he hosted chat show The Lily Savage Show for the BBC for a short run in 1997, before turning his hand to hosting a revived version of gameshow Blankety Blank, which remained on air until 2002.

He later hosted teatime programme The Paul O'Grady Show on ITV from 2004 to 2005, before moving with it to Channel 4.

Throughout his career O'Grady won a TV Bafta, British Comedy Award and a National Television Award for The Paul O'Grady Show.

First published at Daily Express, March 29, 2023

Beethoven's DNA from a tuft of hair reveals new insights into his health and family

by Glenelle Weule

Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Steiler, 1920.(Wikimedia Commons)

Ludwig van Beethoven is just as famous for his music — and his hair — in death as he was in life.

The 19th-century composer created masterpieces such as his 5th Symphony with its iconic first four notes, and Eroica, which is credited as his greatest piece.

But throughout his career Beethoven was dogged by a series of health conditions, leading what he called "a wretched existence".

Now, in an attempt to find a genetic root of what ailed him, an international team of scientists has sequenced Beethoven's DNA from a tuft of hair cut from his wild thatch on his deathbed. 

"We have confidently mapped about two-thirds of his genome," said Tristan Begg, the study's lead author and a PhD student at the University of Cambridge.

Beethoven began to lose his hearing in his 20s and suffered from debilitating bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea that recurred throughout his life. 

As time went on, he also experienced signs of liver disease leading up to his death at the age of 56 on March 26, 1827.

Ludwig van Beethoven died 196 years ago.(Supplied: Beethoven-Haus Bonn)

While the genome, published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology, can't tell us exactly what killed him, it reveals he had a genetic predisposition to liver disease and was infected by hepatitis B at some point in his life.

"We see a very significant risk factor for liver disease, particularly in interaction with other factors; alcoholism is a big one, hepatitis B as well," Mr Begg said.

How do we know it was Beethoven's hair?

Over the past 196 years, scientists have debated what could have caused the famous musician's poor health, with some earlier research based on hair analysis suggesting he may have had lead poisoning.

Beethoven gave locks of hair to friends while he was alive — a common practice in the 19th century — and several more were cut off when he died.

The team sourced eight locks held in collections around the world that had been attributed to him.

The first step was to work out which ones were authentic using DNA analysis of the hair, as well as DNA from living relatives, and historic records.

DNA analysis revealed the Hillier lock of hair did not come from Ludwig van Beethoven.(Supplied: Ira F. Brilliant
Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University/William Meredith)

They were able to rule out three locks of hair, including one known as the Hillier lock. This sample, which had led to the earlier suggestion of lead poisoning, actually came from a woman. 

The other five hair locks contained DNA that matched a male individual from 19th-century Europe.

The history of two of these locks, known as the Halm-Thayer and the Stumpff locks, had also been carefully documented and had unbroken lines of ownership.

How much does the genome tell us?

Mr Begg and his colleagues sequenced the Stumpff lock, which was the best-preserved of the five locks.

They then matched this DNA with data from a large genomic database to identify mutations that may explain Beethoven's ailments.

Stumpff lock of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven(Supplied: Kevin Brown)

But the team was unable to find any genetic variations associated with early-onset hearing loss.

Beethoven did not have variants associated with lactose intolerance or coeliac disease, making it less likely he had these conditions. 

They also found no genetic evidence of complex gastrointestinal conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.

"We can't place Beethoven with any kind of high risk for inflammatory bowel disease," Mr Begg said.

But the analysis did reveal Beethoven had a number of genetic variants associated with liver disease, with one in particular standing out. 

Liver genes, alcohol and hepatitis B

The PNPLA3 genetic variant is involved with multiple stages of disease, said Devanshi Seth, who is head of the Alcoholic Liver Disease Research Program at the Centenary Institute at the University of Sydney.

"The risk increases by threefold in people who drink alcohol and have two other genetic variants," said Professor Seth, who was not involved in the study.

While Beethoven had the PNPLA3 variant which increased his risk, he did not have the two specific additional variants, so we do not know exactly how much his risk was increased by his drinking, she said.

There was also evidence of hepatitis B in Beethoven's DNA, although it is unclear when he fell ill from the infectious disease.

"When you drink more alcohol, the hepatitis B virus can progress to cirrhosis and maybe even cancer," Professor Seth said.

"Having one [risk factor] is bad enough, but having two diseases which are damaging the liver faster and further is not good."

In one of the conversation books Beethoven used to communicate with his friends after he became totally deaf, there is a reference to him drinking up to a litre of wine every lunch time. 

Professor Seth said if that was true, he was consuming up to 10 Australian standard drinks in each sitting, and was likely dependent on alcohol.

Mr Begg said that reference in the conversation book may be scuttlebutt, but there was no doubt Beethoven drank at harmful levels by today's standards.

But, he said, whether Beethoven's drinking was due to psychological dependence or influenced by the society he mixed with and the poor quality of drinking water in 19th-century Vienna was up for debate

"Liver disease was actually surprisingly common back then," he said.

A 200-year-old cold case

Vanessa Hayes, head of the Ancestry and Health Genomics Laboratory at the University of Sydney, said the study read like a 200-year-old cold case.

"It's an exciting forensic story," said Professor Hayes, who was not involved in the research.

"We've come a long way since sequencing of the human genome, but this paper also highlights the limitations of where we're at."

Unlike mapping DNA from a person living today, the team was limited to what they could find by the condition of the hair sample.

"The amount of the genome that actually could be interrogated wasn't complete because of the deterioration," Professor Hayes said.

But even if they could have mapped the entire genome, many diseases are caused by multiple factors, and there are also many variants that are yet to be teased out even in massive population databases.

"Things like inflammatory bowel disease are very difficult to rule out with the information we have now," Professor Hayes said.

Likewise, there is only weak evidence of a variant associated with early-onset hearing loss in large genome-wide studies.

Genes reveal a family surprise

Genetic data from five men living in Belgium with the name "van Beethoven" shared on a commercial ancestry database, however, did reveal an intriguing family mystery.

Their DNA showed the men were related, and genealogical records showed they were part of Beethoven's family tree, but their Y chromosome did not match Beethoven's.

This suggests that somewhere along the line between 1572 and 1700, a male child, potentially Beethoven's father, had been born out of wedlock. 

This is very common, Professor Hayes said.

"One of the biggest things that people who sign up for [ancestry testing] find out is their father's not their father, or something's not correct in the paternal line."

For his part, Beethoven was a stickler for the truth.

In 1802, he instructed his favourite physician to release details about his diseases after he died.

In the end, he outlived his favourite physician by 18 years.

But, on his deathbed, he reportedly told his biographers "whatever shall be said of me hereafter shall adhere strictly to the truth in every respect, regardless of who may be hurt, including myself".

"I hope he's happy with what we did," Mr Begg said.

First published at ABC News, March 23, 2023

Sheldon shakes off retirement for spot in the ‘Choir’

by Helen Musa

Tony Sheldon… “I’m only in four scenes, but my character is a catalyst.” Photo: Phil Erbacher

WHEN I read that Tony Sheldon, one of the stars of the coming show “Choir Boy”, had “come out of retirement” to play a role, I was astonished.

For Sheldon is from such a famous showbiz family that you’d hardly think the word “retirement” to be in his vocabulary. 

The son of Toni Lamond and the nephew of Helen Reddy, with no fewer than 1800 performances in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical” behind him, including on the West End and on Broadway, Sheldon is nothing short of showbiz royalty.

But it was true, as I found when I caught up with him by phone to his home in the Blue Mountains.

Years of treading the boards as the transitioned character Bernadette in “Priscilla” followed by an uninspiring part as Grandpa in the musical version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” had taken their toll.

“I quit the business over three years ago,” he says. “I wasn’t getting any joy out of it any more. I was getting grumpy, I was just unhappy, and I’d been acting since I was seven years old, so I thought: ‘What’s the point of continuing?’”

An additional factor was that, while based in New York for eight years doing “Priscilla”, he was aware of his mother’s increasing health issues – she is just about to turn 91. 

“I thought, now is the time to be quiet in the Blue Mountains and take care of mum,” he says.

“It’s been wonderful and I fully intend to go straight back to it after this.” 

But the play “Choir Boy” beckoned. Penned by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Oscar-winning writer of “Moonlight”, its story is interwoven with a cappella gospel hymns. 

Sheldon gets to play the schoolmaster and, as I remind him, the last time he played a schoolmaster was in “Fame” 23 years ago, so he’s got form. 

Now he plays Mr Pendleton, described in the casting booklet as “mature, adult, elderly, Caucasian, late sixties to seventies”.

His character, he tells me, teaches at the all-black high school Charles R Drew Prep School for Boys – they’re like military schools and very macho. 

Such schools take kids on scholarships, so that the students are diverse – “Different people held together by the music and their faith”.

But competition is the name of the game and as the dramatic focus falls on a young gay man Pharus, the gifted leader of the school’s choir and as they prepare for a fundraising gala, he is taunted with homophobic slurs which almost destroy him. 

Not quite. Enter Sheldon’s character.

“I’m only in four scenes, but my character is a catalyst,” Sheldon says.

Mr Pendleton is brought out of retirement and comes back to the school where he was once a great supporter of civil rights and, as a white male, an “ally”, but now he teaches a liberal arts course, seeking to raise a conversation with the students about history and society. At one point he sort of takes over the choir, a showbiz joke as, unlike Sheldon, Mr Pendleton is totally unmusical. 

The show, co-directed by Zindzi Okenyo and Dino Dimitriadis, is full of exciting movement and “choral-ography”.

But the most excitement is in the performances by the choir members, played by Darron Hayes (who also played Pharus in the US), Zarif, Gareth Dutlow, Abu Kebe, Tawanda Muzenda, Quinton Rofail Rich and Theo Williams – all glorious singers, Sheldon says.

“They’re fantastic kids, a lot making their professional debut. It’s wonderful that there are these kids of colour in this country who are trained,” he says.

“It’s as if we’ve turned a corner in this country. It’s a good news story and it’s important to me that I’m a part of it.” 

“Choir Boy,” The Playhouse, March 29-April 2.

First published in Canberra City News website, March 21, 2023

For Seeker Keith, the carnival is never over

by Helen Musa

Former Seeker Keith Potger… “So many young people write to me and say they’ve listened to the records that their parents loved.” Photo: Elizabeth Hawkes

AT 82, Keith Potger, one of the original members of Australian super-group The Seekers, is showing no sign of slowing down.

On the contrary, in the next few weeks he’ll be headlining the Canberra Legacy Variety Concert with a show he’s written, performing with Shortis and Simpson on the opening night at the National Folk Festival, jointly directing the festival choir with Simpson in a show called “From Georgia [Stalin’s birthplace] to ‘Georgy Girl’,” then appearing with the Royal Military College Band in “Music at Midday” on April 11.

I caught up recently with Potger at the home in Braidwood, which he shares with artist-photographer Elizabeth Hawkes, to find out how he does it.

“I don’t stay idle, I’m still writing songs and still recording them,” Potger says. “It keeps me off the streets.”

But these days his focus is on giving back to the community via charitable work and indeed, he says, it was he who initiated his involvement with the Legacy concert, the proceeds of which will go to supporting the widows, widowers and families of Australia’s Defence veterans.

One might imagine Potger to be a high-living Melburnian or Sydneysider, and so he was for a time, but he’s been living in Braidwood since around 2014, describing the move as “a wonderful decision which felt completely natural”.

He says he’s been able to engage with the local community in Braidwood, especially “with the fantastic National Theatre right across the road… Elizabeth and I started promoting concerts there, and now we think of ourselves as small-town impresarios.”

He even flirted with politics in 2021 for what he described as “about three and a half seconds,” putting up his hand to run for Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council, but he was ruled out because of a “faulty” nomination process.

As for the Legacy concert, Potger had always wanted to perform with an army band, so rang his old mate Barry Morrison, formerly of the band Xanadu, asking for a contact. Easy. Morrison said he’d been to school in Bundaberg with army band conductor (and “CityNews” music reviewer) Ian McLean and pointed him in the right direction.

McLean, who is both producer and MC for the Legacy concert, jumped at the idea and also put Potger in touch with Major Matt O’Keeffe, director of the RMC band, who signed him up for the midday concert on April 11.

According to Potger, both interactions proved “very agreeable”.

Besides, he’d already prepared a program called “Celebrating The Seekers”, which he could do either with a band or as a solo performance and was looking ahead to a NSW solo tour where he would perform in towns from Warren to Woy Woy (Spike Milligan is one of his heroes).

In “Celebrating The Seekers” he’ll talk a lot and perform his own versions of favourite Seekers’ songs, including “I’ll Never Find Another You” and the aforementioned “Georgy Girl”.

“I tell anecdotes about six decades in the music industry,” he says.

The six decades started when he was aged 16 in year 11 at Melbourne High School, where he formed his first trio, which by year 12 became a quartet.

“But The Seekers as we know them began in December 1962, when I was just 21… they’ve been such a massive part of my life.”

Already a master of the 12-string guitar, it was Potger who composed the riffs that became a trademark of the Seekers’ chart-topping recordings and he has continued life as a composer down the years.

After sailing for the UK in 1964 and enjoying an international career, The Seekers were named Australians of the Year in 1967, disbanded in 1968, reunited in 1992 to tour internationally for their Silver Jubilee, reunited again in 2013-14 for UK and Australian Golden Anniversary tours and appeared again in support of the “Georgy Girl” musical in 2014.

“Judith [Durham] is gone but Athol [Guy] and Bruce [Woodley] still live in Victoria and we keep in touch,” he says.

So, does their music resonate with a younger generation of music lovers?

“It depends on whether they heard it at home,” he says.

“So many young people write to me and say they’ve listened to the records that their parents loved.”

The Legacy show is determinedly aimed at the wider general public. He’ll be joined by an acoustic group from the Royal Military College Band, the Sing Australia Choir, Canberra artists, including jazz vocalist Leisa Keen, cellist Charlotte Winslade, bush poet Laurie McDonald and pianist Sam Row, who will play “The Swan” from “Carnival of the Animals” and the Chopin showstopper, “Polonaise Brillante”.

The show will conclude with the entire cast singing a medley of songs, naturally concluding with The Seekers’ classics “Morningtown Ride” and “The Carnival is Over”.

Canberra Legacy Variety Concert, Royal Theatre, National Convention Centre, 2 pm, Saturday, April 1. Bookings at Ticketek.

First published at City News website, March 22, 2023

Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ c.1731 ‘Baltic’ violin sells for $9.44 million at auction

The violin is now the most expensive instrument by the maker ever to be sold at auction

The c.1731 ‘Baltic’ Guarneri ’del Gesù’ violin. Photo courtesy Tarisio

The c.1731 ‘Baltic’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ sold for $9.44 million (£7.78 million) at Tarisio on 16 March. The sale price shattered the previous record of $3.6 million for a Guarneri sold at auction, and marked the third-highest auction sale price ever achieved for a musical instrument.

‘To sell this extraordinary violin for nearly triple the previous auction record price for a Guarneri demonstrates the strength of global demand for rare and historic musical instruments,’ said Carlos Tomé, Tarisio’s director and head of sales. ‘We are delighted to have been entrusted with the sale of the “Baltic” and to celebrate the legacy of Sau-Wing Lam, one of the great benefactors and collectors in the field of classical music.’ The ‘Baltic’ spent almost 50 years in the family collection of Asian-American businessman Sau-Wing Lam (1923-1988), a musician and collector of rare instruments who generously supported young musicians throughout his lifetime.

Made from top-quality, deeply flamed maple, the back is 351mm long, and 164mm at the widest point of the upper bouts; 108mm at the C-bouts; and 203mm at the lower bouts. A dendrochronology examination by Peter Ratcliff dated the youngest rings of the treble and bass sides to 1713 and 1711 respectively. According to Tarisio: ‘The ‘Baltic’ has two locating pins bisected by the purfling in the upper and lower bouts of the back. The Amati-school central pin, seen clearly on the inside back, is 182mm from the lower edge. The thickness of the back is a full 4.5mm at the location of the pin.’

Peter Biddulph chose the ‘Baltic’ as one of 25 instruments by the maker for his 1994 exhibition of Guarneri’s work at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The catalogue for the exhibition said: ‘The “Baltic” model … marks a watershed in del Gesù’s development’ and represents ‘the first fruit of new ideas, heralding a new phase in del Gesù’s career’.

While the ‘Baltic’ is now the most expensive Guarneri sold at auction, the most expensive Guarneri ever sold remains the ‘Vieuxtemps’, sold in a private sale for over $15.9 million. The violin is now played by Anne Akiko Meyers. 

Photo courtesy Tarisio

First published at The Strad website, March 17, 2023

Mairi Nicolson - 45 years with the ABC

by Mairi Nicolson

Mairi Nicolson in the studio.(Supplied: Mairi Nicolson)

Legendary broadcaster Mairi Nicolson began her career in radio in 1978. As she celebrates her 45th anniversary with the ABC, she reflects on the special chemistry that happens when the red light turns on.

I remember vividly the day I auditioned for the ABC in 1977. It took place in a studio in the bowels of the original ABC Upper Forbes Street complex, built close to Kings Cross in the 1930s. Someone told me it was bomb-proof. Probably a good idea being so close to the lively red-light district!

I was asked to read a variety of scripts from news to a piece of poetry. I then had to read out a list of 30 different names of public figures, from politicians to musicians, and say a few sentences about each. Finally, there were pronunciations of musicians like Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Francis Poulenc.

Amazingly thanks to Mum, who corrected my accent when I was a child, my experiences as the mid-night to dawn presenter at 2MBS-FM and an all-encompassing four-year Diploma of Music course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where composer Vincent Plush suggested I had a talent for radio, I passed! In February 1978 I started work as a trainee Announcer on 2FC, the forerunner of Radio National!

I put that title with a capital because there were only Announcers on the radio in those days and they were nearly all men. When I joined, the sole woman was the trail-blazing Margaret Throsby who was reading news and presenting on 2BL (now ABC Sydney).

Looking back, I was very lucky to be given a huge range of duties in my first years, all of it 'live' radio! Not all of my early efforts were auspicious, and I remember receiving pink memos from the fruity-voiced Head of Presentation Roland Redshaw to come up and explain myself.

One of my first challenges was to read the NSW rainfall registration and river heights. I was so proud of getting the pronunciation of Gulargambone and Goondiwindi right that I called the rainfall in metres rather than millimetres, flooding the state.

The 'Cross' was a colourful but hazardous place to work at times. When I arrived to read the 6am news bulletin on a Sunday morning I was often accosted outside in the street with the words "How much, love?" as I hastened in the door!

One evening my future in radio looked very bleak after I broke down laughing in the middle of reading a very serious political story on the 6pm news. The regular studio was being upgraded and the engineer and I were in temporary studios with some basic equipment.

In those days we read a 15-minute bulletin and after 10 minutes there'd be an electronic gong and each of the states would read their own local news. Unfortunately that day I was given a set of chimes and when it came time to 'gong' I noticed the stick was out of reach under the desk. I struggled to pick it up as I read valiantly on, noticing that the engineer had disappeared into convulsions of laughter behind the glass which set me off.

As soon as the bulletin was over the studio supervisor marched in. "You're fired!" But minutes later the switchboard lit up with dozens of listeners phoning in to say how they'd laughed "til they'd cried." They'd never had a better peak hour journey home and I lived to broadcast another day.

As you can see below, our 2FC studio equipment was pretty basic: two turn-tables, and a microphone. We had BBC pronunciation guides and the Grove encyclopedia of music. No Google in those days! What was innovative at the time was the wide-range of music I broadcast from the classics to jazz and folk music.

I even read the news on TV in Canberra and co-hosted Behind the News with John Hall. But music was my muse who could not be denied.

ABC Classic presenter Mairi Nicolson.(Supplied: Mairi Nicolson)

In 1982, I progressed to hosting the Breakfast program, and not long after was launched with a glamorous new photo shoot and an article in Cleo magazine on a new show called Evening with Mairi Nicolson, interviewing an eclectic line-up of guests from Yehudi Menuhin, to Ken Russell and Ruth Cracknell with their desert-island discs.

I remember Hazel Hawke and the artist Lloyd Rees showed a wonderful sense of humanity mixed with tenacity and Ken Russell was gloriously eccentric. On those shows I worked with remarkable colleagues like music programmers Felix Hayman and Ivan Lloyd, and patient producer Amanda Cross.

My big break was a new two-hour Saturday morning show called In Tempo, a forerunner of today's Music Show on RN. Finally, I felt I was in the right place, truly able to use my passions for music and research, promoting local Australian musicians and events and interviewing visiting luminaries from Ravi Shankar to Luciano Pavarotti. I've never stopped enjoying finding out what makes a musician tick. Many are much more vulnerable than their astonishing talents reveal. Ordinary people, with extraordinary gifts.

Every six weeks, we took In Tempo on the road, broadcasting 'live' from the Rothbury Estate Winery in NSW's Hunter Valley with the help of the legendary Bob Barnard and his band. With my intrepid producer, Mary-Jo Capps, we graced the Golden Summers exhibition at the NSW Art Gallery, Taronga Zoo, the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House and the Queen Victoria Building, in Victorian dress! We even inaugurated the new Fire Museum in Parramatta.

By the mid-1980s I'd become a regular host of Sydney Symphony Orchestra concerts in the Town Hall and Sydney Opera House, which I'd watched being built when I was a student at the Con.

I also have fond memories of hosting the summer concerts in the Domain with soloists like Roger Woodward playing the Grieg Piano Concerto. I'd been quite a shy teenager but always felt comfortable on stage, no matter how large the audience.

One passion I have that's never dimmed is working closely with musicians and especially young talent. Experiences like the Sydney International Piano Competition, which we broadcast complete and 'live' in the 1980s, brought me into close contact with talent from all over the world. One year had a particularly strong line-up of Russians. We became friends but had to play cat and mouse with their official Soviet Goskoncert minders.

In 1988 I was asked to go to Perth to interview Sir Georg Solti who was making his Australian debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a coast-to-coast tour as part of our big bicentennial celebrations.

Mairi Nicolson and Sir Georg Solti.(Supplied: Mairi Nicolson)

Sitting opposite that Hungarian force of nature, recording our conversation, was as thrilling as watching him conduct Mahler's Ninth on tour. Later our paths crossed again in Manchester when amongst other works he conducted a memorable Death and Transfiguration with the BBC Philharmonic.

In the 1990s personal reasons took me to the UK, 'up north' to Manchester for nearly a decade, where the BBC was moving away from cultured Oxbridge voices to include regional ones, and this colonial girl slipped in under the radar, working on both Radio 4's long-running Women's Hour and Radio 3's Drive program In Tune.

I've always loved French music, so the chance to work as the broadcaster with the BBC Philharmonic and their chief conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, who excelled in French repertoire, was a dream come true.

I had thrilling experiences touring with the orchestra across the USA, where I'll never forget calling a concert 'live' from the stage of Avery Fisher Hall, seated close to the bass section, feeling like my hair was standing on end as Håkan Hardenberger gave the American premiere of the trumpet concerto by Sir Peter Maxwell Davis.

On another tour in Switzerland, I lost my voice in a live broadcast from Victoria Hall, Geneva, and had to opt for a sexy whisper.

Presenting many BBC Proms from the Royal Albert Hall were highlights too, especially introducing old friends like the Australian Youth Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra on tour.

Melbourne has been home for more than two decades now, and I can't keep up with the amount and variety of great music on offer and the non-stop opportunities to host some of it.

The opportunities to work regularly in the beautiful Melbourne Recital Centre, hosting the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and recording an interview with Dame Elisabeth Murdoch at Cruden Farm, stand out in my memory today. I have loved working with rising stars at ANAM and developing close relationships with the MSO musicians and conductors Markus Stenz, Sir Andrew Davis and now Jaime Martín and interview legendary artists. Touring twice to Europe with the orchestra as their broadcaster, was the icing on the cake.

Mairi Nicolson and Bryn Terfel.

Hosting a recent MSO Myer Music Bowl concert with an audience of 11,000 Melbournians hanging on every note of Orff's Carmina Burana in rapt silence, I was reminded again of how precious this human-to-human form of communication is and how much we missed it during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

I think it's the honesty of live music-making that I love. The fact that each interpretation is unique. As a broadcaster working on stage, back-stage, interviewing marvellous musicians, the buzz is always there.

Longevity in the business has meant I've been able to watch fledgling Australian ensembles become world-class and talented youngsters I knew back in the 80s go overseas themselves, and return home to add lustre to the vibrant scene we enjoy today.

Thanks to Julie Copeland I worked for a period on RN as host of the Sunday Arts show, and explored a wide range of music and poetry on the late night programs Melisma and Nocturne. Again in Melbourne I am blessed with hugely supportive and generous colleagues like producers Duncan Yardley, Jennifer Mills and Melissa May. You hear the magic that comes out of your radio every day and it's thanks to the many dedicated and talented sound engineers I've been fortunate to work with.

On radio in Melbourne, I've been lucky to host The Opera Show for 14 years, programmed by the sparkling Warner Whiteford, sharing a passion ignited by my dear Mum when I was a child, and Legends where I learn so much about life from these phenomenally talented musicians.

45 years on, I'm grateful for the countless opportunities both the ABC and BBC have given me to share my passion for music and musicians with audiences on both sides of the globe. It's exceeded anything I ever expected.

When that red light goes on, whether at the side of the stage or in the radio studio, and the first piece of music begins to play, some special chemistry ignites inside me, a feeling of joy I still have to this day.

First published at ABC website, February 24, 2023