WATCH: ‘Jacaranda Town’ captures heart of Grafton festival

Jacaranda spirit brought to life by virtual choral collaboration, judged the winner of My Jaca Heart competition.

BRENDA Little has only witnessed the wonders of Grafton's jacarandas for the past four years, but she's already expressed the true heart of Jacaranda.

Jacaranda Town, a song she composed, has won the My Jaca Heart competition.

Enlisting the Strings 'n Things group at the Clarence River Conservatorium for the backing track, she wrote the song for her "Beach Choir" choir at Wooli to sing.

The only problem? Just like the Jacaranda Festival, COVID had cancelled all the events.

"It's been quite the journey," Ms Little said.

"The song had been in my head for about a year, and I'd shown some people the words and gotten some feedback, and people told me I should do something with it.

"I had been doing rehearsals on Zoom since March with the choir, and when I decided to do the song, it was only a couple of weeks. So I did up a conductor track and everyone did their bit."

The resulting video attracted the eye of the judges, awarding Ms Little's five-minute musical tribute the top prize of $1000.

"I'm so grateful to the Strings group, and to all the people who went out of their way to do the vocals, it was very brave," she said.

"I'm really excited to take it somewhere, and get more voices and hear it played live."

Despite her relatively short time living in the Clarence Valley, Ms Little said she felt a real connection with the place and the Jacaranda spirit.

"I just love the spirit of the festival, I love the sense of community around it, the local businesses and everyone get behind it, and it's such a tourism drawcard for the area," she said.

"I also love the Clarence River, so the song features the river a lot. That's the idea of the song, a day in October during Jacaranda."

The competition was sponsored and judged by the Dagwood Dog Guy, a regular at the festival since 1952, with $2000 in prizemoney for the competition.

"Your amazing video is everything that Grafton is during Jacaranda," Jesse McDonald (The Dagwood Dog Guy) said othe winner. "It gave goosebumps for Alicia and I. Congratulations again and thank you to all for your beautifully composed video."

Second prize was awarded to a video by the students of Nymboida Public School, who each read their memories, and thoughts about what the Jacaranda season meant to them.

Third prize was awarded to Rebecca Yager, whose short story chronicled her lifetime experiences for herself, and her family at the festival.

Jacaranda Festival manager Mark Blackadder said the the McDonalds have a passion for Grafton and wanted to know what people loved about Jacaranda.

>>> RELATED: Dagwood dog man puts up $2k for Jacaranda competition

"Why the winner was chosen was it was everything that they wanted in the competition, to tell the story of Grafton and why Jacaranda is so important to the community," Mr Blackadder said.

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