My name is Michael Shirrefs. My life has been a wonderful mix of radio, music, art and people’s stories, placing me in a luxurious space where I can engage with creative ideas and creative people.
With nearly three decades experience as a radio program-maker with the ABC, I’ve gained extraordinary freedom in the range and scope of the stories that I can communicate. ABC Radio National is one of the few, rare public spaces in the media world where ideas are still privileged over all else. And in recent years I’ve been able to spread my focus to stories across Australia and around the globe.
Most recently it has also allowed me to travel to India—telling stories of identity and change in that massive, rapidly morphing country. And across Europe, where I’ve been particularly drawn to the cultural, social and political phenomenon of the European ‘project’.
I have a background in fine art, having trained as a print-maker. And in music, with a distant memory of performing in indie bands in my youth, and a more contemporary creative outlet writing music for radio features.
Over the past decade, I have worked closely with my wife Lyn Gallacher, also a radio program-maker and a beautiful story-teller through the medium of sound.
It’s not at all a bad world that I inhabit …