She’s bringing this rare performance and tribute to the generations of her Papua New Guinean and First Nations ancestors  to the intimate surrounds of the Princess Theatre on Friday August 4.

“I don’t think it was even in the realm of what I thought I could achieve,” Ngaiire said.

“When my manager called and said … that that was going to be a possibility, it honestly was, I felt like I wasn’t even living. I feel like I’d died and gone to heaven.

“I have a specific experience of being Papua New Guinean, which is living in Australia and having that experience within a Western context, carrying through things that I’ve been taught by my family, being able to go back to PNG and visit family who live a very polar opposites to what the life that I live here.

“And so I have a very colourful kind of family life, if that makes sense. And I would kind of tie that back to having a very healthy connection back to my culture and back to my family and who I am and what it means for me, and the responsibility that comes with being from a culture that I come from as well.

“I’m so grateful for the people that have come before me that I’ve been able to have the life that I have now.”

Ngaiire’s sound melds electronic neo-soul, gospel, and big pop sounds, strained through her unique cultural lens. She describes her music and career as crossing many genres, mediums and expectations, and this collaboration with the QSO highlights that.

“To do a show like that in a smaller room I think will be really special.,” she said.

“Obviously playing with an orchestra is amazing anyway for both me and for the audience.

“It’s such a honour to be able to be at this stage in my career, to be able to do something like this and to see my songs take on a new life in this way and to be elevated to a space that I feel like the songs kind of deserve.

“And yeah, I’m really looking forward to it because it’s also my birthday.”

Ngaiire’s innovative approach has brought her four ARIA award nominations, four National Live Music Awards, three FBi Radio SMAC Awards, and the inaugural Australian Women in Music Award for Artistic Excellence.

She has a growing fanbase of international renown, having collaborated with other groundbreakers of sound on tour such as Sufjan Stevens, Alicia Keys, Flume, Nai Palm of Hiatus Kaiyote and Leon Bridges.

The show has been arranged by exciting young composer/creator, Alex Turley who has worked on diverse musical projects with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Genesis Owusu, Rüfüs Du Sol, Electric Fields, Sangam and Ripple Effect, and was the 2022 Young Composer-in-Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

The PNG-born, Australian-raised Ngaiire is bringing the show fresh from wildly successful seasons at Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Centre.

Queensland Symphony Orchestra is Queensland’s largest Performing Arts company and one of the oldest, having kept music-lovers across Queensland entertained for over 75 years.

In addition to their reputation for classical music excellence, QSO is extending its mashup of musical styles with this performance, having also performed alongside artists as diverse as Birds of Tokyo, Missy Higgins, Ben Folds, Megan Washington, Horror Show, Thundamentals and Kite String Tangle.

Ngaiire said she’s thrilled to bring her cultural message of healing to Brisbane, and explore her music anew in this performance.

She’s asked to describe her music often, but said it defies categorisation.

“I never really set out to make it sound a certain way,” she said.

“I think a lot of artists speak about how a song tends to write itself, and I think that’s to be said about production value as well and how we go about arranging stuff.

“In terms of me and the musicians that I surround myself with it’s very much about how it feels as opposed to how it sounds to other people. And so maybe that’s why there’s so many influences in my stuff, but yeah, I would just say that it’s me, it’s Ngaiire.”

This performance is part of Open Season – a curated program of music and art running across The Princess Theatre and The Tivoli during winter. Open Season is supported through Arts Queensland, the Live Music Australia Fund and the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – initiatives of the Australian Government.