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 Kate Miller-Heidke, one of the most sublime performers on the planet is headed to Cairns to play at The Cairns Performing Arts Centre on the 19th of July.

 We caught up with her during band rehearsals in Brisbane ahead of embarking on a month long tour of Australia. 

Last playing in Cairns at Munro Martin Parklands at the height of the pandemic Miller-Heidke says “I was just so lucky and grateful to be in Queensland at that point.” 

Miller-Heidke’s album Child In Reverse was released in 2020 after a six year hiatus of releasing her own music but she explains her creativity was being utilized on many other projects at that time “ I was quite busy doing other things, I wrote an opera for children and was in it for Opera Australia, performed a bit overseas and then my husband collaborator and I wrote the music and lyrics for Muriel’s wedding the musical, which was a huge undertaking. I was definitely taking a break from my own albums and my own songs but doing a lot of other interesting things” 

Talking about her song writing process Miller-Heidke says “ it is always different and I have to keep mixing it up otherwise I start to repeat myself and this time around it was more collaborative than ever before, I met the other people at a songwriting camp Apra organized on the gold coast and we just really clicked, so most of the record was three way collaboration with those guys and we developed a really easy, fruitful groove. In a lot of ways it was one the quickest and most natural record I have ever made.” 

Having trained at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music Miller-Heidke says this prepared her for becoming a musician by giving her the flexibility to have a diverse career with several different strings to my bow so to speak. I think in Australia we are a small country so we just cant tour for ever and ever and I wouldn’t want to either, I love to stay challenged and working on things that scare me and things that are different. The music knowledge and discipline I received at The Con stood me in good stead.” 

After two years of covid lockdown and limited touring opportunities Miller-Heidke says getting back on the road for a month is for her a little “nervous but super excited and thrilled, this tour has been cancelled and delayed so many times I don’t quite believe it is actually happening and It means a lot to me, I think it is going to be a special one.” 

“I have some incredible musicians coming with me and we are hoping to keep it quite spontaneous, so I am welcoming requests, people can send me requests on social media, each show is going to be different.” 

Miller-Heidke has also sent out the call for children to sing with her onstage during the performance this came about “spontaneously at the last few gigs we have had, there has been someone who has wanted to get up and sing with me at the show has written to me, so I thought I would organize it in advance. There is a lot of little cute singers that come to my gigs and its just a beautiful moment for the audience as well’ 

Kate Miller Heidke plays at Cairns Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday the 19th of July Tickets available from Ticketlink BUY NOW