Katie Noonan returns with songs of healing

KATIE Noonan will return to the Northern Rivers on July 4 with an intimate show at Brunswick Heads, featuring new music created in the wake of a year marked by grief, transformation and unexpected creative sparks.

After recovering from a collapsed lung and the end of her marriage, the five-time ARIA Award-winning singer is stepping back onto the stage with her indomitable joy slowly returning.

Alongside her is Sassy, an 11-year-old staffy who is joining Noonan on the road.

“I adopted her late in life, mine that is. I’d never had a pet, and I wanted that for my children,” Noonan said.

“She was attacked when she was little, so she is a bit screwed up. She’s 11 now and part of the family.

“I was lucky enough to find a dog-friendly Air B&B, so she will be with me at the first few shows.”

“I recently broke up with my husband, and in this new single woman life, we’re co-parenting the dog.”

It has been a year of profound grief after a double hernia surgery and the pneumothorax compounding family tragedy.

“My dad died last year, and my marriage was dying over the last five years,” she said.

“With the puncture, I’ve got very strong lungs, and I did all the exercises and therapy, and it has healed. I’m very grateful.

“Lungs are the organ of grief in traditional Chinese medicine; it felt like the universe’s message to let go of that while healing the wound.

“Once I recovered, I turned a corner with my mental health.”

Over 25 years, the artist has produced 29 studio albums, with seven platinum record sales and 29 ARIA award nominations across diverse genres.

 

The year is now taking shape for the busy 48-year-old, and one project finds her on the road with a stage version of Grace, marking the 30th anniversary of Jeff Buckley’s seminal album.

“I had to do this. It’s my desert island disc. I saw him play at Seagulls in 1996, and my mind was completely cracked open,” Noonan said.

“There were a few hundred of us down the front, genuflecting at the altar of Jeff, and a bunch of pokies players up the back. It was transcendental.

“Hot off the press is that the fella that co-wrote Grace, Gary Lucas, reached out to me via the magic of the interwebs, and I sent him my version of Grace and we’ll soon be doing some projects, here and in New York.”

Noonan’s ongoing project, AVÉ Australian Vocal Ensemble, is also set for a new endeavour.

The group’s raison d’etre is commissioning new Australian works, and it has commissioned 60 in the last four years.

“I’m incredibly proud of that; we are one of the highest commissioning groups in Australia,” she said.

“We work with poets – our first project was with David Malouf, the second was with Gwen Harwood, and our third was with Tim Winton.”

The newest collaboration is with acclaimed author and journalist Trent Dalton. The two artists are of similar age and grew up in the same era of 1980s Brisbane.

“This body of work is called Lyrics that I wrote on Queensland Rail trains between 2002 and 2006 for bands that never existed in my head, and 20 years later, we’re turning them into music,” she said.

 

“I couldn’t help writing these songs. They just fell out. I’ve already written five.

“It was beautiful to reconnect. Trent is someone who has a very active and vocal inner child, which I love.

“Most people have that inner child hammered out of you, but his is noisy and joyful and unabashedly earnest and beautiful.

“I try to be the same with my writing and to write from a vulnerable, honest place.

“Setting Trent’s words to music about him falling in love with his wife is divine because it’s been healing.

“I’m calling the project The Birth and Death of Love.

“Isaac and I were together for 26 years, and now it is the death of our marriage and what I thought my future was.

“So, this is the universe gifting me a beautiful thing to focus on.”

The Brunswick Heads show, being one of the first after her metamorphosis, will premiere the new collaborative material with Dalton.

For tickets, visit brunswickpicturehouse.com/katie-noonan-4-jul