Jack Carty Lists His 5 Favourite Queensland Songwriters

Queensland’s composers of tomorrow have been given an opportunity to shine, with the Queensland Music Festival opening applications for On Song, a programme for school students looking to further their musical ambitions.

One of the judges of On Song is Jack Carty (the other is Queensland Music Festival Artistic Director Katie Noonan), who has toured the world and released five full-length studio albums.

The selected musicians will participate in a series of songwriting and performance workshops joined with advanced mentoring from Jack, before travelling to Brisbane for a performance alongside Jack. “It’s great to be a part of On Song again,” Jack says.

“Queensland schools seem to be full of amazingly talented songwriters and artists, and the standard last time was so high. It’s really exciting to be a part of programme that helps talented, young up-and-coming songwriters that might be hidden away in remote Queensland find their voice.”

Here, Jack lists 5 of his favourite Queensland songwriters.

1: Dan Kelly

Queensland raised and one of my favourite Aussie songwriters, full stop. Writes such clever, funny and moving tunes, and plays guitar like a demon.

2: Jordan Ireland

One of the main songwriters from The Middle East, who were out of Townsville. He’s written one of my favourite songs ever and now makes solo records (one under the name Stolen Violin).

3: Asha Jefferies

Such a beautiful voice and turn-of-phrase. Asha lives in Brisbane and you can tell she has listened to a lot of classic stuff from the '60s and '70s.

4: Airling

A beautiful, Brisbane-born songwriter with a gift for textures.

5: Dan Parsons

Lives in Melbourne now, but was a Queensland boy originally. Writes classy, classic songs and gets them out there with a bloody nice baritone.


Entries for On Song close 24 May. Click here for more information.