22 January 2026
The MACcers take on the ABC Studios
By Bridget Hutchinson (2026 Media and Communication)
Bridget Hutchinson takes us behind-the-scenes of a day in the life as an ABC Radio presenter as part of the 2026 Media and Communication program at National Music Camp.
You’d love to listen to some great music, to kick-back and relax, listen to something while having a drive, tune into a local concert, or maybe you just need to hear a comforting voice. What do you do? Switch on ABC Classic of course! But when all you hear is a disembodied, soothing voice coming across the waves, the whole thing seems a bit mysterious… Luckily for the AYO NMC Media and Communications participants, this is a mystery no more.
Monday of the second week of National Music Camp marked a visit to Russell Torrance at the ABC Classic Studios, where we learned all about what is actually involved in being a presenter. If you think it’s just about talking, you are so far from the truth. Walking into the studio, we were greeted with about a million monitors (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) and many microphones. Our benevolent host – the one and only Russell Torrance – showed us how it all worked between piece announcements. Not only must he be an expert announcer, but he also controls transitions, timing, and manages SO many buttons. The job naturally also requires a great knowledge of classical music, needing to craft expert announcements based off of just a few basic dot points of info.
During a longer piece break, Russell gave us an activity: the opportunity to craft our own intro and outro for him to use on air for the first movement of Brahms’s second piano concerto. If you tuned in to hear an ode to early music teachers and Clara Schumann, just know those suggestions came to you courtesy of the MACcers (Though with Russell’s added presenting flair of course)!
The MACcers at ABC studios in Adelaide. From left to right: Paul Nicolaou, Andrew Aronowicz., Izzy Eagles, Sarah Huang, Amanda Wong, Mark Wilson and Bridget Hutchinson
After the morning show was wrapped, it was our time to record some trial audio of our own. Even just the simple instruction on how to use the arrow keys (left to play, up to record, down to stop) had us all tripping over our fingers. Cringing at hearing your own voice spoken back to you in high definition aside, we all found it a very exciting experience.
Russel then gave us a tour of the remainder of the ABC studios, meeting some very important celebrities along the way:
From auditoriums to TV studios, there is lot to explore at the headquarters.
We finished our time with our lovely media and communication fellow, Amanda Wong, joining Jo Laverty, Russell Torrance, and AYO media and communications tutor Andrew Aronowicz for an on-air interview about the National Music Camp experience so far. The studio was full of happy stories about new connections and great opportunities that the camp environment fosters, which most certainly went on to include this experience for us.
