John Farnham's "alternative Australian national anthem" You're the Voice will become a "choral revolutionary" song against domestic violence during the 2017 Queensland Music Festival in July, artistic director Katie Noonan said.
The full program for the month-long festival was unveiled on Tuesday tonight by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
"Music and people's voices should be a positive tool for change," Katie Noonan said.
"And domestic violence is one of the issues in this state and around the world, and I thought 'how can we talk about this in an empowering way?
"So we are going to have a choir of 2500 people at South Bank Piazza on July 29 and we are going to sing our un-official national anthem and it is going to become a large choral revolutionary type of event."
A new version of You're The Voice has now been re-recorded - with vocals from Katie Noonan, Kate Ceberano, Troy Cassar-Daley, Eurovision entrant Isiah Firebrace and Archie Roach - and all the sales - through iTunes - will go to DV Connect, a key agency tackling domestic violence in Queensland.
Welcome to the 2017 Queensland Music Festival, the first shaped by proud Queenslander, former george and Elixir singer-songwriter, Katie Noonan.
Another section of the 2017 Queensland Music Festival is called Songs that Made Me, where successful entrants will perform songs "which shaped them" at concerts and workshops in Brisbane (Tivoli), Mt Isa, Mackay and Gladstone, alongside Deborah Conway, Clare Bowditch and Hannah Macklin and Katie Noonan.
The Eurythmic's 1986 album Revenge – a copy of which Noonan bought from Rockinghorse Records with her pocket money - was an album that shaped her own journey into music, she says.
"Annie Lennox was my first hero," Noonan said.
"I went in the city on the bus with my brother (Tyrone) and bought the album which changed my life.
"So, she was my first hero on many different levels.
"Music and people's voices should be a positive tool for change."
Queensland Music Festival artistic director Katie Noonan
"She is an incredible songwriter, she's an incredible singer and used her voice in lots of amazing ways in the pop world.
"But she's also a great humanitarian."
This now international cross-section of music - looking at our musical past and looking towards our musical future - is at the heart of the 2017 Queensland Music Festival, launched in Brisbane on Tuesday night, Noonan says.
"I think a big part of the Queensland Music Festival's program is feeding a legacy wherever we go," she says.
"We don't just come in and do a show and then leave.
"All our programs are really community-driven.
"We come in and go, 'Well what would you like'?"
In regional Queensland young female singers have been chosen and will now receive a month's mentoring, before doing master-classes with established performers Conway, Bowditch and Macklin.
The Songs that Made Me section expands one of Katie Noonan's earlier ideas.
"It was an all-female show, very simple format; you did four of five songs each where you would do 'songs that made me' – that you wrote and then, 'songs that made me' that you wish you had written."
This idea culminates in concerts during the festival at Brisbane's Tivoli (July 16), Mt Isa (July 11), Mackay (July 13) and Gladstone (July 15).
But that is just one slice of this year's festival.
Queensland Music Festival 2017.
What is it: 100 performances to 45 cities, towns and remote regions over three weeks in July.
Ten highlights
1 – 30th anniversary concert at QPAC's Concert Hall of the Go Between's 16 Lovers Lane album, where guest singers – including Steve Kilbey from the Church and Mark Callaghan from Gangajang and the Riptides - will sing the tracks from the album, eventually released in 1988. Original members Lindy Morrison (drums), Amanda Brown (violin, oboe and vocals) and John Willsteed (bass and guitar) will play with Dan Kelly, Danny Widdicombe and Luke Daniel Peacock (Halfway).
2 – Nambour's free Currie Street Music Crawl highlighting the burgeoning music scene on the Sunshine Coast;
3 – Songs from Queensland indigenous Missions – State Library of Queensland: July 7. Free show at 5pm;
4 – Announcement of the inaugural Carol Lloyd Award winner honouring the career of Brisbane rock singer, Carol Lloyd who died in February;
5 – You're the Voice concert at Brisbane's South Bank Piazza on July 29 where community choirs will join Katie Noonan, Kate Ceberano, Isiah Firebrace (Australia's 2017 Eurovision entrant), Archie Roach, Troy Cassar-Daley and Montaigne to raise their voice against domestic violence;
6 – Joh for PM: with Colin Lane (Lano and Woodley) at the Brisbane Powerhouse;
7 – Immersion – 10 concerts from Montaigne, Robbie Miller and Deborah Conway at The Johnson Hotel in Spring Hill.
8 – Lior: Two concerts at Brisbane's Old Museum and Noosa's Long Weekend: July 22 and 23;
9 – Jazz concerts including To the Earth/To the Sky at the Spring Hill Reservoir and the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium;
10 – Opera at Jimbour Station, north-west of Jimbour; The Merry Widow (July 22) and The Power Within where "music" is dug up from under the town and saved by the Moranbah community (July 28-29).
The full program can be read here
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a personal friend of singer Carol Lloyd, last night named Triple J favourite Georgia Potter as the inaugural Carol Lloyd Award winner.
Potter was selected from five finalists after more than 70 applications from singer-songwriters aged from 15 to their mid-60s.
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