Martin Buzacott is leaving ABC Classic after a long history working with the ABC.
“I’ve reached retirement age, I’m following my passions,” he shares.
In 2024, Martin left his role as the presenter of Mornings on ABC Classic after a decade. He returned to ABC Classic on Weekend Brunch in 2025.Â
Danielle McGrane will present Weekend Brunch on ABC Classic for the rest of the year.
Martin says he will be dividing his time between Australia and France and researching 19th-century French composers.Â
“I’m riding my bike in the Pyrenees, I’m learning to speak French.”
As he says farewell to ABC Classic, Martin shares five of his favourite memories.
‘Mate, just tell me the story’: Making documentaries with radio legend Costa Zouliou
My on-air life with ABC Classic only began in 2012, when I was commissioned to write and present a four-part radio series commemorating 80 years of classical music on the national broadcaster.
At the time, Costa Zouliou was the Brisbane-based audio-engineer for ABC Classic, but he was so much more than that.
A radio legend from the early days of triple j (everyone remembers his Three Hours of Power), Costa became my mentor, technical producer, friend, and straight-talking de-mystifier of radio jargon.
Through pithy epithets, and most of all through his advice to simply “tell me the story,” Costa taught this career-long print journalist how to make living, breathing radio.
I loved the sound he achieved on our projects together; Resurrection Symphonies, Strangers in Paradise, Music in No Man’s Land, and Anzac Voices being just some of our favourite collaborations.
‘Martin, have you got a moment…?’: My love affair with Studio 407
When I started daily live-to-air presentation in 2016, I needed continuous studio time to learn what to do as a solo operator, presenting and largely self-producing Mornings five days per week.
The only viable option in ABC Brisbane turned out to be an unpretentious little Local Radio facility at the end of a corridor on the first floor. It was known as Studio 407.
It had an ancient broadcast console, but it became my practice space and then my first live-to-air studio home for ABC Classic Mornings.
When Brisbane was selected by the ABC to trial a state-of-the-art broadcast technology, I was picked as a kind of on-air test pilot, which meant moving out of 407 to the larger and more prestigious national studio 402 upstairs where the new technology was being trialled.
It was like going from the radio Stone Age to the Space Age overnight and it was thrilling.
We ‘proved the concept’ successfully in 402 and then I took a short holiday.
On the morning I returned from leave, though, I found a delegation of smiling audio-engineers awaiting me on the first floor, with the question, “Martin, do you have a moment?”
They then led me back into my beloved Studio 407, which they’d rebuilt in the new configuration in the space of just two weeks while I was away.
ABC Classic Mornings went live-to-air from there again immediately, and the transformation of that former ugly-duckling of Brisbane studios into a state-of-the-art broadcast facility was complete.
From that moment onwards, Studio 407 became a safe space, a workshop for on-air experimentation, and most of all, a place where I, personally, found my radio home.
‘Why didn’t you tell us!’: My favourite interviewee, Ludovico Einaudi
The spontaneity of my Mornings presentation style developed as a direct result of that new technology in 407. My favourite unplanned on-air moment though had little to do with the new studio’s multi-tasking capability.
It happened at the end of a week where the Mornings Playlist had been focused for the first time on the music of Ludovico Einaudi.
I was just getting ready to play my final Einaudi track when I looked up and saw someone arriving unexpectedly outside the studio. It was Ludovico Einaudi himself.
I invited him in, switched on the microphone, and said: “Well, we’ve come to the end of our week with Ludovico Einaudi on the Mornings Playlist. Over the past five days, we’ve listened to his music, we’ve learned about his life, and now, at 11am on Friday, the only thing that remains is to introduce you to the man himself. Ludovico Einaudi, good morning.”
I still get goosebumps thinking about it. Afterwards, I was asked why I hadn’t told anyone beforehand about Einaudi’s appearance. The reason was I hadn’t known myself!
‘Dance like there’s no one watching!’: The Covid lockdowns
In March 2020, the first of the Covid lockdowns was announced and as we all remember too well, things were scary and uncertain, and only destined to become worse.Â
Guest access to ABC studios shut down literally overnight.
I was on air in Brisbane on that very first morning after the announcement and realised that I had a live-to-air interview scheduled with a guest in the Melbourne ABC “Tardis” that day. As a result, I had 10 minutes to fill on Mornings.
Knowing that everyone was locked inside, maybe alone and frightened, I decided to fill the gap by introducing a dance segment.
I called it Dance Class, a deliberately absurd title at a time when we all needed exercise and a laugh the most.Â
Our motto was: “Dance like no one’s watching, because in all likelihood, no one is.”
Dance Class became a regular part of Mornings, daily at 11am during lockdown. The crazier the concept the better and it gave me free rein to be myself on air with listeners, to break every radio rule, and to use 407 to its full potential.
E=MCB2: My favourite on-air dance buddy
As I now head into retirement in my beloved Pyrenees, my final memory of ABC Classic that I’ll take with me is a more recent one. It involves my favourite on-air dance-buddy Megan Burslem.
Everyone who’s heard us together on air over recent years knows the spontaneous energy and joy that’s sparked whenever we’ve been together in the studio.
One listener, playing on the similarity of our names and initials, dubbed the effect as E=MCB2.
So true. Another texted in to ask: “Do you swingers want some cabana with that cheese.”
I miss Megan’s radio energy already, but most of all I’ll cherish the memory of her personal integrity that fuels her radio craft and that has lifted me up whenever I’ve needed it the most.