ABC Radio host on why he chose Brisbane to transition from Emma to Ed

Radio host Ed Ayres has opened up about transitioning from Emma to Ed and why he decided to make the journey in Brisbane.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Ed Ayres at home. Picture: David Kelly

If you were going to choose a city in which to transition would you choose Brisbane? I mean there is a view, held particularly by southerners, that the Queensland capital is a tad conservative, but those days are gone really.

ABC radio presenter, musician, teacher and author Ed Ayres reckons the place is pretty progressive.

He chose Brisbane for his transition from Emma to Ed, a journey he talks about in his charming, frank and edifying new book Whole Notes – Life Lessons Through Music.

Ayres, 54, has been known as Eddie but prefers Ed.

He is known and much loved as the host of Weekend Breakfast on ABC Classic and is the author of three other books – Cadence, about his journey by bicycle from England to Hong Kong with only a violin for company; Danger Music, describing his year teaching music in Afghanistan (he says he’s devastated by what has transpired there recently), and Sonam and Silence, a children’s book about the importance of music.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Ed Ayres at home. Picture: David Kelly

His books have been short-listed for several prestigious awards including the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Whole Notes is an ode to music and a celebration of humanity’s potential and it comes at a time when people are searching for solace, meaning and acceptance in a world ravaged by, not only the pandemic, but partisan divides.

The publicity blurb claims that Ed’s book is a “a balm” and will bring comfort to many.

“It is about knowing your true self, about healing and the intrinsic nature of music, which can clarify our toughest moments and enhance our most wonderful ones.”

It’s also, interestingly, about his transition and embracing a new life in Brisbane.

“Ed was born Emma and transitioned just before his 50th birthday. Better late than never.” This is a wry footnote promoting the book.

Now Ed Ayres reflects on that, and his many fans will be intrigued with his personal revelations while they will also be charmed and inspired by his cri de coeur regarding music. He wants us to love it, to embrace music and, if we can, to learn an instrument, like him.

He’s an accomplished musician already having studied in his home country of England in Manchester and London (also Berlin) and he was a professional viola player in the UK and Hong Kong where he spent many years with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. But he also plays cello and is now on another musical journey, a slightly noisy one at times, learning the horn, which many of us would have grown up calling the French horn.

He inspires us all to learn some instrument if we can, tells stories about his own music students and he outlines the benefits to our mental health and how music has helped him cope.

Emma Ayres in 2007 before his transition to Ed.

For him music is spiritual and practise is akin to religious devotion.

“I have learnt that practise is my prayer,” Ayres writes.

“With practise we obsess, we reflect, we amalgamate. With practise, we can look inside and find our rhythm, our sound, our pulse. And we can trust in it to work, always. With practise, we know how to know ourselves.”

One can imagine this book becoming a valuable primer for music teachers everywhere and Ayres is a gifted teacher among his other roles including as a public speaker and moderator at events where he has an almost Parkinson-like knack of putting people at ease as he grills them.

His new book will also be an inspiration for another reason and that is it’s an honest insight into transitioning and that brings us back to his decision to transition in Brisbane, a city he first came to know as the home of his cousin Sally and her husband Dave.

“Can you mention them?” he asks. Well, I just did.

But with the bad old days still within living memory I ask if he is aware that Brisbane may not have been the best place to be a transgender man a few decades ago.

“Charlie, my partner, was born and bred here,” Ayres says.

“Her friends and family have filled me in on Queensland’s rich history. But I find it very welcoming and Queensland is one of the world leaders in transgender health.

Ed Ayres at home. Picture: David Kelly

“I happen to love Brisbane. It’s the Australia I dreamt of when I first moved to this country in 2003. I lived in Melbourne and Sydney and worked there but that dream was not fulfilled by those cities.

“When I first visited Brisbane in 2013 I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It was winter and everything was so fresh and warm and I thought – why am I living in Sydney when I could be living here? I feel incredibly thankful to live in a country where being transgender is not a crime and where it is recognised as a medical condition and we are not regarded as crazy or deranged.”

Ayres says that when he was undergoing his name change from Emma to Ed “everyone was just so cool about it”.

“Most people simply don’t care,” he says and he likes it like that.

In Brisbane he moved from being Emma to Ed with, well not exactly with ease because it’s not easy – but with acceptance.

Now he lives happily as Ed with his fiance, Carol “Charlie” Le Brocq, a retired midwife.

“We were friends at first and then we got closer and closer,” Ayres says. “She was one of the first people I told that I was going to transition. She said, ‘Why don’t you come to Brisbane?’ She knew the doctors and offered to look after me. We lived in each other’s pockets for 24 hours a day and her family were so supportive.”

Ed Ayres’ book - Whole Notes.

His transition was covered in some detail towards the end in Danger Music and his personal story is beautifully woven into the rich tapestry of his wise, witty and frank new book.

Which is, I should point out, mostly about music and the love of music and if Ayres has high hopes for the book those hopes rest on “inspiring people to pick up an instrument”.

“I want people to recognise that it’s never too late to play an instrument and to engage with music … any music … not just classical music,” he says.

“It’s calming, enlightening, it helps us remember things, it generally lifts our spirits.”

He purposefully embarked on learning the horn from a man regarded as something of a master actually, Peter Luff, an associate professor at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, formerly associate principal horn with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

So he has had the experience of “being an adult beginner” himself.

It’s lovely reading about his interaction with his students, his work with community ensemble Bardon Strings and he says writing the book was “such a joyful thing to do”.

“It’s just putting down all my thoughts and beliefs and understanding,” he says.

“It was so enjoyable writing it and Charlie fed me boiled fruitcake along the way.” Bliss.

Whole Notes: Life Lessons Through Music by Ed Ayres, ABC Books, $35