Megan Washington prepares for 'emotionally intense' performances of Insomnia

MEGAN Washington bounds into her Sydney Opera House dressing room, sits at the Steinway piano and starts playing a tune.

Megan Washington

MEGAN Washington bounds into her Sydney Opera House dressing room, takes a seat in front of the Steinway piano and starts playing a tune.

Suddenly, she jumps up, flops into an armchair and bemoans the "stupid haircut" she got this morning.

The singer, in her guise as Washington, is preparing for the Sydney Festival performance tonight of her conceptual music, art and design show Insomnia. And she's clearly anxious to rehearse.

The show will be performed only four times; once in Sydney, then Paris, London and New York. The 26-year-old singer-songwriter finds the content too emotionally intense to perform any more than four concerts.

"It's because this music is sad, and when I wrote it I was really sad," Washington says. "When you do a tour you probably have to play your album about 300 times. I'd be f----d if I'm going to do that."

Washington, who grew up in Brisbane and is now based in Melbourne, wrote the songs when she was in New York and suffering from what she now recognises was depression.

"It's something I never thought I'd experience," she says.

The concert features just one song from her previous album, I Believe You Liar; the rest of the concert is comprised of songs she has never performed. "The songs are about displacement, loneliness, grief and anger, anxiety," she says.

The singer says while she has moved on emotionally from when she wrote the album, she doesn't feel particularly happy now.

"I'm ok, I think. I'm better," she says. "I don't really care if I'm happy or not, I just want to be working."

Insomnia (the concert) is comprised of four movements Opiate, Amphetamine, Barbiturate and Nicotine, which Washington says gives the performance structure.

"Those four words give (the show) something to hang off," she says. "Otherwise it would be a big milky ball of madness."

Washington's works of art, poetry, design and photography will also be included in the concert.

Washington will perform at 9pm tomorrow (Thursday) at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.