Ed Le Brocq

Ed Le Brocq, previously known as Emma, Ed or Eddie Ayres, (born 1967) is a musician, music teacher, radio presenter and writer.

He is notable for his work on the Australian ABC Classic radio station, as well as for his numerous charitable efforts and memoirs about his transition as a transgender man.

Born in Dover in 1967, Ayres grew up in Shrewsbury, in the county of Shropshire, England.

He was two when his parents separated, leaving his mother, Anna, to bring up four children aged within four and a half years of one another, living in a small house.

He has described one of his siblings as a difficult child, who ran away from home many times, and there were frequent family fights.

He started to play the violin when he was eight years old, switching to viola when he was twelve.

However the cello was his first love.

Miserable in early adolescence, Ayres self-harmed.

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 (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship; at the Royal Academy in London, with the assistance of a Countess of Munster Musical Trust scholarship; and at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.

Ayres was a professional viola player for 12 years, including eight years performing with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra after moving there in 1992.

In 2000, he raised money by making a twelve-month cycling trip from Shropshire in England to Hong Kong.

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 received Australian citizenship in 2010.

In 2011 he busked in Hyde Park, Sydney, to raise money for the victims of the floods in Queensland.

In 2012 Ayres appeared on Big Ideas Talking with Andrew Schultz, composer and head of the school of Arts and the Media at UNSW, and music psychologist Emery Schubert, on insights into composition and emotional responses to music.

By 2014, he was living in the inner-west suburb of Glebe with a new partner in Sydney.

His memoir, Cadence: Travels with music - a memoir, was published in May 2014.

On 30 June 2014, Ayres announced that he would be leaving at the end of the year.

In July 2014, he appeared on the Musica Viva channel with an interview to camera: Chamber Music & Me.

In October 2014, ABC FM radio's Classic Breakfast website announced that he had "chosen to hang up [his] headphones and move on to new adventures".

after Ellen Fanning had been announced in September 2014 as temporary successor.

Ayres later revealed that the real reason for his departure was that he was suffering from major depression at the time.

Lunchbox/Soapbox at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne in January 2015 featured Ayres presenting The Viola: A big violin, a small cello, or just a joke?

Later that year he moved to Kabul, where he began teaching violin, viola and cello at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music.

In 2016 he gave an extended interview on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering.

He came out as transgender in that year.

In 2017, Ayres moved back to Australia, to Brisbane, where he taught cello, violin and viola.

In October he spoke with Jon Faine at an event at the Wheeler Centre about his music and personal life and his 2017 book Danger Music.

From December 2017, when it was created as The Art Hub, until mid-January 2020 (after renaming as The Art Show), Ayres presented an hour-long program on Radio National about art.

Ayres had developed an interest in art after learning about it from his brother, Tim, an artist.

In 2017 Ayres narrated "Not Quite the Night Before Christmas" as part of a live performance with a capella group The Idea of North and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which was made into an album called A World of Christmas.

He appeared at both Adelaide Writers' Week and Sydney Writers' Festival in 2018.

He was on the board of Green Music Australia, retiring in 2018.

He has a brother, Tim Ayres, who is an artist who lives and works in the Netherlands, and whose work is held in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the New York Public Library, and by members of the Dutch royal family.

He also has two sisters, Liz and Penny.

In 2019, Ayres returned to ABC Classic to present Weekend Breakfast.

Ayres has been involved in a number of charitable efforts.