Southern Belles

An eclectic musical soul, songstress Katie Noonan always has a musical project or two on the boil, and her latest alongside internationally-renowned classical guitarist Karin Schaupp has just earned the pair two ARIA nominations for Best Independent Release and Best Adult Contemporary Album. On the home stretch of a 22-date national tour to support their album Songs Of The Southern Skies, Noonan is very pleased with the reception thus far.  

“Well I guess the idea of the project is a celebration of the wide diversity of music that we make here across the broad cross-section of styles and people, and ages as well,” she says of the record, which honours Australian and New Zealand artists from The Easybeats to Nick Cave, incorporating Voices Of Birralee youth choir and a host of iconic guests. “It's really beautiful getting into these songs more deeply, and playing to different audiences each night. Some people are strictly [into] classical music and some people more probably know me and my pop and jazz stuff, so it's a real mixed bag of styles which is great. And one of the best things about [it has been that] at almost every show we've had a school choir join us onstage, which is really special because for a lot of the kids it has been their very first time ever on the stage, so it's been nice to be a part of that journey with the kids.

“I do a really broad range of projects so everything's slightly different,” continues the prolific creator. “This is probably a little bit more classical in that Karin is obviously an amazing classical guitarist, but it's extremely intimate which I love because most of the concert is literally just us in duet, so that's pretty intimate. There's a special quality from things being extremely stripped back like that, back to the essence of the song I guess.

“And the special exciting news about Brisbane though is that my brother Tyrone is gonna join me. Man Of Colours, the Icehouse record, was the very first album that we bought together – sorry, the very first Australian album that we bought together. The first album we bought was Crowded House, which is almost Australian. Iva Davies sings on [Songs Of The Southern Skies] but I thought it would be great to have something special for the Brisbane concerts that's different to everywhere else, so [Tyrone]'s gonna join us for Man Of Colours, the song. I still remember going into Rocking Horse Records… and I distinctly remember getting the bus with my brother and going in with money and buying that album and falling in love with it,” she says, highlighting the personal insights that shaped the album's tracklisting.

Having met briefly in childhood and being aware of each other's talents whilst studying in Brisbane, an encounter at Huntington Music Festival in 2004 led Noonan and Schaupp to joint explorations in British folk. From there, the impetus for Songs Of The Southern Skies, and the incorporation of guest collaborations including Gurrumul and Chris Cheney of The Living End, began at a very fitting celebration.

“That was a beautiful collaborative process and it literally started at the ARIAs last year, because Gurrumul was there and we very briefly hung out backstage, and then I saw Chris there as well,” Noonan smiles. “I presented with Iva, so that's where I first got the idea of him to sing on the album. A lot of the seeds of the project creatively were sown that night actually.”

Katie Noonan & Karin Schaupp will be playing the following shows:

Thursday 18 October - The Majestic Theatre, Pomona QLD
Friday 19 & Saturday 20 October - Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane QLD
Friday 26 October - Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Wollongong NSW
Saturday 27 October - City Recital Hall, Sydney NSW