The award-winning songstress will champion community singing through her Queensland Music Festival programme.

The Queensland Music Festival has announced four-time ARIA Award-winner, seven-time platinum selling songstress, Katie Noonan, as its new Artistic Director. Noonan, who is the first Queensland woman to helm the biennial state-wide festival, succeeds Australian jazz icon, James Morrison.

“I live here, and I’ve grown up here, so I want Queenslanders to see and hear their story and feel that this Festival truly represents them,” Noonan said of her curatorial vision for the festival, which will have a strong emphasis on singing. “I want Queenslanders to find their voice. I’m a singer, and I love singing and know how good singing is for you,” Noonan explains “It’s well documented how beneficial singing is for your body, mental state and our sense of community and kinship, but our contemporary society seems to sing together less now.”

The Festival will host events showcasing the full spectrum of music, including classical, jazz, hip hop, RnB, pop and rock, but Noonan will be including a significant amount of community singing as an overarching theme during her first festival in 2017.  

“The generations before...