Sean Ford

Sean Ford has always had a head full of music. He would listen to it, think about it, sometimes write about it and even dream it. He would sometimes wake with that dream music in his head and had no idea how to turn it into something real. That changed in 2020. He started learning to play the cello. That led to intensive study of sight reading and musical theory. And that opened up the possibility of composing. He started off intending to write an ambient piece, but soon realised it was a classical piece. A surge of composition followed, including two symphonies, concertos, short pieces, a series of fun pieces called Music For Cats and experiments with mixing musical movements and his poetry intended for narration. At the time of writing, he is working on a third symphony and a shorter piece called Starburst Girl.

He says:“By the sounds in my head, by the sometimes unexpected effects of juxtaposing instruments, and by story. I try to always tell a story in the music. There's always a concept, a musical film in the mind, so to speak.”

Ford is very fond of the cello, enjoys writing for piano and has become rather transfixed by viola. His music is, at times, very percussive. He does not believe he sounds much like anyone else overall, and tries to have inspirations more than influences.

That said, elements of spacerock, art rock, ambient and, lately, jazz, do appear in the predominantly classical music. Inspirations include Stravinsky, Miles Davis, Zappa, Eno, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass, Wagner, Sun Ra, Joni Mitchell, Bowie, Dvorak, Mahler, Hawkwind, Sir John Barbirolli, John Cale and Jacqueline Du Pre. Ford has been a newspaper journalist for many years and is a published novelist. An Australian and British citizen, he has lived for most of his life in Tasmania.