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Before Time Could Change Us.
How does a singer like Katie Noonan - known for her performances with George, the band she put together in Brisbane with her brother Tyrone, end up singing at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival with the Paul Grabowsky Trio?
Katie Noonan pauses for a short second before launching into the story. "At the Woodford Folk Festival about four years ago it was pissing down with rain and I ran into Paul Grabowsky. I was dressed in garbage bags, and here I was meeting this incredibly influential guy... it was just a ridiculous situation but someone introduced us. At the time he was looking for a singer to work with the Australian Art Orchestra... and he said 'do you want to tour Europe?' and I said 'Yes please'."
Several weird connections and a number of working projects later, she and Grabowsky still see eye to eye. It all seems quite ordained - meant to be - the way she explains it. "It's proved to be a very fortuitous relationship," she says with significant understatement.
'Before Time Could Change Us' is the performance they're giving together for the Cabaret Festival; a specially written song cycle of 16 songs which follows the journey of a relationship, from go to whoa. "The lyrics are really interesting," says Noonan, "they're not gender specific at all, which I find very interesting... and some of it's very contemporary jazz, some a bit more accessible and with a pop side to it." They've previously performed the piece in Melbourne and Townsville, and an album is all well advanced, but this will be their first outing in Adelaide.
When I ask her about her recent experience with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, her reaction is immediate, and honest. "Incredible. They're an incredible orchestra, and they played beautifully... I'd never seen them before.
"It was quite a challenging job given that we were presenting some opera and jazz," she admits of the performance she gave as guest vocalist along with her mother Maggie Noonan. "We even did some Bernstein and Gershwin - bordering on music theatre. The conductor had to be over a pretty wide style, and we brought our own, and we brought our own band as well.
"But it was incredible to sing with my mum; it was altogether a very fun experience."
Pursuing other projects clearly means Noonan is having time off from George? "Yeah, it does. I'm going away on Friday to have a bit of a songwriting sabbatical. I often get out of the city - to have a bit of perspective and get some space. I did that last year on Stradbroke Island - it's a very special place."
Last year Noonan spent a couple of weeks in a shack with her "very dodgy keyboard" putting some ideas together.
George are not your usual band however, and where people might otherwise be asking about them breaking up, Noonan simply says "I love those guys on a whole other level - 'cause my brother's in the band, and we're really proud of 'Unity' and in determining success we're there."
George have been together for eight years, so she feels it necessary to get "a step away to appreciate it for what it is, and get a fresh perspective on it." In a similar vein her brother Tyrone is off doing a jazz album with his band and their drummer is in Asia playing with another outfit. George, she insists, set their own agenda.
"That's it for us. The music industry is kind of odd at the moment, with reality TV and all that stuff.
"Songwriters," she murmurs, and I pick up the point, because the centerpiece of this industry is songwriting... take away all else and the songwriting is still what it comes down to. She mentions Guy Sebastian by way of example, and points to the fact that he at least can back his own ability with song writing.
"I think it's just more open about how manipulative it is," she observes with reference to current reality TV shows, and sounds almost hopeful about it.
Alex Wheaton
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Katie Noonan with the Paul Grabowsky Trio perform 'Before Time Could Change Us' in The Space from 24 -26 June.
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