Jessica Mauboy to headline the Yarrabah Music & Cultural Festival in 2022

Jessica Mauboy will for the first time headline a celebrated Queensland music and culture festival.

Australian singing star Jessica Mauboy will headline the celebrated Yarrabah Music & Cultural Festival in a coup for the small Far North Queensland community.

The Darwin-raised hit-maker will attend the event in Yarrabah, an Aboriginal community outside Cairns, for the first time when she performs next April alongside the Yarrabah Brass Band, which was formed in 1901 by ancestors of some of the current ensemble.

“I’ve been reading about Yarrabah and … it’s exciting being able to celebrate a festival that has been formed by music and that style of music,” Mauboy said.

“I’m excited to share my experience with music and even maybe learning words and learning a cultural song and being able to take that away and gift that to the people I know, and my family and share that experience.”

Jessica Mauboy

The festival is a gathering place for original storytellers and artists to celebrate the region’s history and continue its cultural vibrancy.

It was originally slated to take place in October but has been postponed to April due to ongoing Covid restrictions.

Mauboy, who is currently recording her next album over Zoom in Sydney, said it was important to stay positive about future events.

“It’s going to happen one day, let’s in the meantime keep safe and try to remain positive and do what is necessary to keep that positivity in your own household until then,” she said.

“I’ve been practising making a list of what I’d be able to sing at the festival and I’m sure when it gets a little closer I’ll be able to engage people attending and find out what they want to hear and maybe I will be able to learn a cultural song in that area and be able to perform it with an elder or anyone who stems from that Country – that’d be awesome.”

The full line-up of First Nations headliners and local acts, including cultural workshops, will be announced soon.

Originally published as Jessica Mauboy to headline the Yarrabah Music & Cultural Festival in 2022