Eddie Ayres

Background

Born in Dover, Ayres grew up in Shrewsbury, England. He graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and did further studies at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, where he received a DAAD scholarship, the Royal Academy in London, with the assistance of a Countess of Munster scholarship, and the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.

Career

Ayres was a professional viola player for 12 years—including eight years performing with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2001, he began presenting the classical music breakfast show on the Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) station in Hong Kong.

Ayres moved from Hong Kong to Australia in February 2003, living in Melbourne and cycling to work each day.

From 4 February 2008, Ayres began presenting the Classic Breakfast program on ABC Classic FM. In the same year, he taught at the Melbourne Girls Grammar School and taught cello to a wide range of private students.

Ayres published his memoir, Cadence: Travels with music - a memoir, in 2014.

On 30 June 2014, Ayres announced that he would be leaving at the end of the year. In October 2014, ABC FM radio's Classic Breakfast website announced that "After six years as the presenter ... Emma [sic] Ayres had chosen to hang up her [sic] headphones and move on to new adventures." Ellen Fanning had been announced since September 2014 as Ayres' (temporary) successor.

In 2015, Ayres moved to Kabul where he began teaching violin, viola and cello at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music.

In 2017, Ayres moved back to Australia, and now lives in Brisbane, teaching cello, violin and viola.

Personal life

Ayres received Australian citizenship in 2010.

Ayres has been involved in a number of charitable efforts. In 2000, he raised money by making a twelve-month cycling trip from Shropshire in England to Hong Kong. In 2011 he raised over $11,000 for the victims of the floods in Queensland by performing a number of public buskings in Sydney and Melbourne.

Gender transition

In 2016, in an interview with freelance journalist Danielle Moylan published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Ayres came out as a transgender man. He said that he had first realised he was a man during a cycling trip in Pakistan in 2013 in a "total beam of light" moment one evening while watching the film Boys Don't Cry. He said, "I've waited a long time to do this. I suppressed this for so long, now I feel I can't wait." Ayres had written about gender several times in his 2014 memoir, Cadence: Travels with music - a memoir, narrating his experiences of being thought of as a man during his bicycle travels in countries such as Pakistan.