Vanessa Hughes is a broadcaster, presenting Classic Drive and the Classic Choir Hour on ABC Classic. She was raised on the music of the Czech masters, thanks to her grandmother’s excellent record collection and fell in love with choral music after a visit to the local library resulted in her borrowing a rather exotic-looking disc of Palestrina masses. She has been a choir nerd ever since. Having acquired a law degree, Vanessa decided it was useless and went into radio instead, where she has advocated for ethnic and gender diverse composers and a better funded Australian arts industry. Before moving to ABC Classic, Vanessa worked at ABC Radio Sydney. In her spare time, Vanessa helps run Inner West Voices, a strictly non-auditioned community choir based in Sydney and volunteers for the Radio Reading Network.