INTERVIEW: Katie Noonan on reinterpreting classic female Australian artists on 'Songs of the Southern Skies Volume 2': "There is something different about the female voice and female storytellers"
Words: Emma Driver
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Glenn Hunt
Published: 4 April 2025
Is there any voice so recognisable in Australia than the ethereal, soaring sound of Katie Noonan? From her early rock days in ’90s indie band George with her brother Tyrone, to her delicate and exploratory jazz albums with Elixir and her classical collaborations with mother Maggie, Noonan has been able to turn her vocal tones to most musical genres. She’s released albums of heartfelt originals, founded the vocal ensemble AVÉ, and dreamed up versions of famous and lesser-known songs that are inventive yet spilling over with empathy.
Now she is touring in celebration of all the local female artists whose music she loves. Alongside classical guitarist and ARIA winner Karin Schaupp, Noonan reinvented classic songs sung by Australian women in volume 2 of Songs of the Southern Skies, released last October. That instalment of their Skies series – which includes Songs from the British Isles, Songs of the Latin Skies, and volume 1 of Southern Skies – is a diverse mix, as you’d expect: old favourites familiar to the ear, and lesser-known songs ripe for the polishing that Noonan’s vocal gifts offer, plus the delicacy of Schaupp’s guitar. Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Xanadu’, for instance – it might feel like a throwaway bit of fluffy disco fun, but Noonan and Schaupp turn it into a gentle dream of utopia. ‘The love that we came to know / They call it Xanadu’ has never sounded quite as haunting. Kylie Minogue’s ‘Confide In Me’ is pulled back into something simpler than the dark-pop original, with a dramatic cello and strings to build tension; Deborah Conway’s ‘It’s Only the Beginning’, a bubble of new-love optimism, is delivered with Noonan’s lightest tone for maximum buoyancy.
While her own songwriting is a great strength, Noonan has become something of a master interpreter of other writers’ catalogues over the last decade or so. She performed and recorded Joni Mitchell’s Blue album in its entirety – an unimaginable challenge for most singers, but Noonan took on Joni’s vocal leaps and high-wire soprano with extraordinary sensitivity, adding her own musicality and jazz touches. Then there was her version of Jeff Buckley’s album Grace, which was one of the must-see shows at the 2025 Sydney Festival. She’s reinterpreted everything from ’80s pop hits to tangos and folk classics; transported some of her favourite songs into a hazy lounge bar on Late Night Tunes With Noons (including a moving piano-and-vocal version of Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’); and written and recorded song versions of texts by Kurdish-Iranian poet and refugee activist Behrouz Boochani. Noonan’s covers are never throwaway novelties – all are carefully chosen and arranged, underpinned by Schaupp’s exquisite guitar work.
Noonan and Schaupp are taking on a ‘part 2’ tour for Songs of the Southern Skies this April, playing theatres across Victoria and NSW. Women In Pop’s Jett Tattersall caught up with Katie on the eve of the tour to find out what keeps her musical heart beating, and how a passionate songwriter can find a new way into reinterpreting other writers’ work.
Hello Katie! I’ve just been relistening to Songs of the Southern Skies volume 2, and what a collection it is. This is the fourth ‘songs of the skies’ you’ve done with Karin Schaupp. How did this whole series of albums get going?
This is our fourth studio album. Jeez! We met in the early ’80s, not that either of us remember, but our mothers were educators at a school for sort of freaky prodigy kids, and I was playing piano then, not singing at all, and Karin, obviously, was playing classical guitar. Her mum was teaching guitar, and my mum was singing, teaching voice. And so we met then, but neither of us remember – but our mothers remember. And then Richard Tognetti [violinist and artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra] actually put us together at the Huntington Festival in December 2005 [in Mudgee, NSW] – so 20 years ago, basically. And then Karin and I kept on running into each other and we were like, “Oh, we should probably do something …”
So we did Songs from the British Isles, Songs of the Southern Skies, and Songs of the Latin Skies. And now it’s Songs of the Southern Skies again but only women. Just the ladies – the queens of the Australian music scene – including two who we’ve recently lost: Olivia Newton-John and the beautiful Aunty Ruby Hunter. And then a range of singers who I grew up admiring, like Deborah Conway and Kate Ceberano. And then mates of mine, like Sia and Missy Higgins, and contemporaries of mine, like Sarah Blasko, and one of my own tunes that I actually wrote for Karin’s mother [‘Gratitude’].
It’s really funny going back over them and realising, ‘Yep, they’re all Australian’. When you were selecting them, there must have been a couple that you had to leave off and were, like, ‘Damn!’
Oh, yeah, there were so many. Literally, we had a list of 50 instantly. I’m more pop, and Karin is a self-proclaimed “classical dag” – she doesn’t listen to pop music, but now she’s getting cred with her children, because she’s playing Sia! She loves their music, but it’s just not her vernacular. She’s since discovered these fantastic women, and loved getting to know their stories.
We’re both going through a very tumultuous time. Personally, we’re both ending the biggest relationships of our lives, so we’re going through a huge time of personal turmoil and upheaval, which is very challenging. But these songs have been bringing us solace. Songs like Kate Ceberano’s ‘Brave’ – “I won’t ever walk away / I’ll just be brave and stay / And in your arms, I’ll rise.” – really have been helping me get through my grief of separation, with the magic of music healing our own hearts.
I’m glad you’ve still leaned back into music – and the sisterhood too.
We’re both going through the same thing, which neither of us wanted. So that’s been quite challenging. But music and our friendship have really grown a lot through that, because we spent a lot of time in the car driving from gig to gig. And we’ve got a lot of driving, starting next week. So absolutely, there’s lots to unpack. And we’ll take solace in the sisterhood.
Maybe introduce more aggressive pop songs into the car? You could put on Beyoncé, ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’, and that’ll get you both in the mood …
Oh, just you wait. Songs are just falling out of me at the moment. That’s all I know: to process my feelings through songwriting. And particularly ‘Brave’ by Kate Ceberano, it’s like, “Fuck, yeah, this feels good singing this song!” And Kate joins us on the album, darling woman. And that’s also the song that, at every concert we’ve done, we have a community choir join us on stage for that song to close the first set. So I’ve organised, I think it’s about 25 choirs across Australia, and we’ve got nine more coming up [for the tour], which starts at the Queenscliff Town Hall [in Victoria], with the Tides of Welcome choir. We’ve had everyone from four-year-olds in Hobart to 94-year-olds in Sutherland on stage.
That’s beautiful. And you do get the comfort of having the choir – there’s a whole team to back you up.
For a lot of them, it’s the first time ever performing on a professional stage, which is fantastic. And then some of them are very experienced choristers, who have a pretty busy community choir schedule, like the Waratah Girls Choir and Phoenix Choir. But for some of them, it’s their first time singing on stage. I love that. I believe that everyone who can talk can sing.
Bringing them on for ‘Brave’ will sound gorgeous. Having ‘Xanadu’ on the album is pretty exciting too …
Such a magical song! And it’s such a great arrangement, because we do it in half-time, then the chorus and the bridge in normal time. That one’s a real credit to our guitar arranger, Richard Charlton. I improvise – I’m just singing the songs as I know them, and my parts aren’t notated – whereas Karin, being a non-improvising classical musician, all her parts are notated predominantly by Richard Charlton, who’s a brilliant composer and arranger himself.
I love what you guys have done with it. You both have a history of doing this, just applying yourselves to songs you love, but how was the shift with this album, specifically focusing on Australian women? Were there any differences you found in putting it together?
There is something different about the female voice and female storytellers, because I think there’s a heightened sense of vulnerability and honesty and truth. Because we are storytellers, we’re carers, we give life, we breastfeed; we’re daughters, we’re sisters, we’re aunties, we’re mothers, we’re grandmothers. Caring and communicating is core to who we are. And obviously men do that too, but I do think it comes more naturally to women – which is why we should have female priests, for example, which hopefully the Catholics will catch on to soon. But you know, I think we’re just naturally less afraid to be vulnerable and share our hidden truths.
My kids, now that they’re getting older, they’re like, “Oh god, Mum, that’s a bit of an overshare.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s just who I am, my love – I’ve always been that way.” I write from the heart. I can’t edit myself, because then it’s not true. It’s not authentic. And I think Kate [Ceberano] and Deborah Conway and, you know, Sia and all these beautiful women – Missy Higgins and Sarah Blasko – are exactly the same.
And Aunty Ruby’s song is heartbreakingly sad because it speaks of her alcoholism and being homeless on the streets, and you know the drudgery of that cycle. Homelessness is such a horrific scourge of our society, and she went through with Uncle Archie [Roach]. And, you know, combined with the inherent racism of being from the stolen generations, you know, that’s a incredibly, beautifully honest song. You know, “I used my fingers as a comb” – because she didn’t have a comb. And then she sings, “Then I’d have to score a drink” – very honestly, talking about her alcoholism and her homelessness and her cycle of poverty at that time in her life.
These songs are about storytelling, as you say, but they’re also about your insanely beautiful voice, and Karin’s guitar playing. Her playing is just stunning.
Yeah, she’s a genuine virtuosic freak! Guitar is very much a male world, and there are very few female classical guitarists. So you know, in that way, just her being her has been a fantastic act of feminism and bravery.
When you’re a songwriter yourself, there must be a bit of weight and possible trepidation going into doing interpretations of songs by other writers – to do your version, but still to do it with respect and get it exactly right?
It’s a very delicate balance. There’s no point in just doing a straight-out cover, because no one’s going to sing ‘Xanadu’ and do better than Olivia Newton-John. [Her] version is just perfect. And no one’s going to sing ‘Down City Streets’ the way Aunty Ruby does. But I think I can only sing songs that I can put myself into. Missy Higgins singing ‘Cooling of the Embers’ is about watching her grandmother die, I believe. And I’ve just watched my dad die, so I could absolutely put myself into that story, because I’ve had the privilege of being with someone as they die peacefully, which is a profound, profound privilege. And then, you know, Clare Bowditch’s ‘I Thought You Were God’ – I could easily remember the butterflies and the sickening rush of fresh love, where you just fall so hard for a person that you think they are like a god. She’s just so visual. One of the lyrics is beautiful: “The night sky is peeling back her sheets / The linen is lavender and underneath it I ride your bike / Bike bar’s cutting into my crotch.” Wow – you’ve gone from lavender night sheets to the word “crotch” in a few sentences. Clare Bowditch could do that because she’s achingly herself – that’s why we love her.
That record that Sarah Blasko made, ‘We Won’t Run’ – I just loved that song so much, and I could feel a lot of myself in it too, because I was brought up a Catholic and riddled with Catholic guilt, and I think she had a similar struggle with her religious upbringing. And so there’s something in each song that relates to my life, so that I can sing it from a place of authenticity. And then it’s just a matter of finding the gentle balance between. This isn’t just a cover. We’re not an RSL, we’re in concert halls and theatres. We want to reinterpret these songs into something different, but not so far away that the original is unrecognisable. People either love it or they hate it, and that’s great – I prefer to create a polarising reaction rather than an apathetic reaction.
I think that’s with all art. You’re only ever going to watch the film that people have argued over, or listen to the album that really divides the fans. So, given your history, is there still an untapped musical sky for you and Karin?
Oh, we’ll find another sky! There’s always another sky. Karin and I will be finding skies for many decades, I’m sure, because we love playing music together. We’re very dear friends. If anything, we would do this again, really.
But I’m also aching to get back to my own original stuff, because that’s been a little bit on the backburner while I’ve got kids going through school. I’ve written a new album’s worth of material. So I think, for me personally, my next release will be my own music. And then with AVÉ, we’ve commissioned over 61 new Australian works since we started, which would have to be one of the highest commissioning ensembles in Australia. We’ve provided over a quarter of a million dollars for composers to write, which is so awesome.
I’m actually just about to work on a whole song cycle. [Novelist] Trent Dalton has gifted me 166 unpublished pages of song lyrics that I’m going to turn into a song cycle for AVÉ, part of our artist in residency program at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. My first priority is always telling Australian stories, and my own stories, and commissioning new works and celebrating our great poets. We’re just about to record a Tim Winton song cycle, and then we’ll move on to the Trent Dalton. So, yeah, original stuff is my first priority.
Although one person did say that maybe our next album should be trucking songs, Australian trucking songs, and we can reimagine working-class men. I’ve done a whole show of songs of [Cold Chisel songwriter/keyboardist] Don Walker. He’s an absolute genius, and when you hear songs of men sung by women, it really shifts things a lot.
Yeah, it can either be really lovely or creepy as hell!
You know, ‘Choirgirl’ [Cold Chisel song, which Noonan included on her 2020 album Late Night Tunes With Noons] is about a girl, a young woman, getting an abortion, and him watching it as the boyfriend, and watching the doctor. So when it’s sung by a woman, it takes on a completely different feeling. I’d only want to sing songs that were full of beauty and truth, of which there are plenty. So next it might be Songs of the Southern Skies: Just the Fellas – that’d be lovely as well. There’s no shortage of beautiful singer-songwriters.
There’s no shortage of male singer-songwriters getting played in Australia, that’s for sure.
Well, that’s the thing. Anything I can do to celebrate the feminine. I take that as my responsibility.
Katie, thank you so much. Congratulations on the album, and best of luck for the tour.
Songs of the Southern Skies Volume 2 is out now. Download and stream here
Katie Noonan and Karin Schaupp are on tour in April 2025. Find details and buy tickets at katienoonan.com.au/shows
Follow Katie Noonan on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and her website
Songs of the Southern Skies Volume 2 Tour
4 April - Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne VIC
5 April - The Capital, Bendigo VIC
6 April - Cowes Cultural Centre, Phillip Island VIC
9 April - Centro CBD, Wollongong, NSW
10 April - The Concourse, Chatswood, NSW
11 April - Blue Mountains Theatre, Springwood NSW
12 April - MAP Mima, Speers Point Park NSW
13 April - The Art House, Wyong NSW
