Nambour royalty Andrea Kirwin steers local music scene

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Nambour royalty Andrea Kirwin steers local music scene

Sunshine Coast

Penny Brand

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Nambour royalty Andrea Kirwin steers local music scene

September 25, 202312 min read

If the Sunshine Coast had a Lord Mayor of Music it would be Andrea Kirwin.

Kirwin is a staunch community devotee and has quickly become the folk poster girl for the Coast’s burgeoning music scene after setting up record label Peace Run Records in downtown Nambour a year ago.

In a more grass-roots driven direction, the Sunshine Coast Council this year took the leading-songstress under its wing as guest programmer for the Caloundra Music Festival, which runs this Friday to Sunday, and features dozens of local acts (full list at end).

“I really hope people get out and support and our bands,” Kirwin said.

“If people don’t support festivals like this we become in danger of losing them. We have lost so many venues and festivals in the past, it’s important to get out and behind them.

“Word of mouth is still the biggest currency in the music industry.”

The Sunshine Coast lost several live music spaces due to Covid-19 and zoning restrictions, including Peregian Originals, Nightquarter and Eleven Dive Bar.

But with the Comiskey Group (who own Eatons Hill and Sandstone Point hotels) revealing their plans to turn Strawberry Fields at Palmview into a Coachella-style festival precinct earlier this year, Kirwin said not all was lost.

“I think we will see a lot of change in the next five years.”

Kirwin also runs Council’s Nambour Forecourt Live, a family-friendly live music event set up to launch the Nambour Special Entertainment Precinct two years ago, and soon became a much-loved monthly fixture for locals.

Picture: Those Folk at Nambour Forecourt Live.

In what Kirwin called a “Steven Bradbury moment”, the Nambour precinct was originally planned for Maroochydore’s Ocean Street, but due to a conflict of interest with Mayor Mark Jamieson owning the Duporth Tavern, it was hand-balled to Nambour.

Or as Kirwin said “skated” west across the Bruce Highway.

This was welcome news for locals who have for decades wanted to see the suburb – historically known as the Coast’s capital and chock-full of charm – restored to its former glory, with some shop facades not changing since the late 1800s.

Picture: Currie Street, Nambour, looking north along the eastern side from Chadwick Chambers towards the Royal Hotel, circa 1938.

Kirwin said it would be a “renaissance opportunity” for the suburb when Generation X and Y took over, because the age groups had experienced life with and without the internet, making them both creative and experimental, but with a desire to retain heritage.

“When I opened up in Nambour, Council saw it as an opportunity to get more music there,” she said.

“I would love to see it become the arts and culture hub of the Sunshine Coast.”

Kirwin has released five studio-albums; the most recent, Bloom (2021), features 13-piece big band The Yama-Nui Social Club, which she juggles with producing and helping give musical leverage to local artists wherever possible.

She’s even had a beer created in her honour, made by Sunshine Coast award-winning craft brewhouse the Glass House Brewery.

But it’s been a sometimes-painful 20 years of performing, personal struggles, and even a partial-law degree, which brought Kirwin to where she is today.

Kirwin, 38, grew up in North Queensland and has both Australian and Fijian heritage.

“Some of my earliest memories as a child are of singing. Church songs, mostly, both in English and Fijian.

“My mum met my Australian dad when they were over in Fiji, and moved to Townsville, where I was born and grew up.

“Being the eldest daughter of three, I remember sitting together with my mum, a Fijian church minister, and siblings and singing in three-part harmony.”

It was hearing Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” on the radio at age seven when she realised the true beauty of music.

“That song had a lasting impact on the type of songs I like to listen to. Easy listening, laidback and soulful songs. The kind of music I now love to create.”

Kirwin was influenced by her brother’s CD collections of hip-hop, gangster rap and R&B music, such as Tupac and Mary J Blige – that would hit her “like a freight train of soulful emotions” – and by the time she was 13 she could play and sing around 50 songs on the piano.

As her mum became “more religious”, Kirwin became “more rebellious” and was eventually sent off to boarding school.

During an unsettled time when her parents divorced a year later, she was suspended from school three times.

But that painful period brought her to music like never before.

During life as a boarder at Geelong Grammar School in grades 11 and 12, Kirwin’s musical abilities started gaining recognition, after receiving a music scholarship to attend the prestigious school, along with a year’s worth of singing lessons.

The school’s choir taught her to sing in Latin, German and other languages, and they toured Europe visiting cathedrals in England, France, Germany and Austria.

It was a moment singing in Paris’s famous Notre Dame cathedral when Kirwin started thinking about songwriting.

“My housemaster, Mrs Helen Seymour, the sister of Mark Seymour from Hunters and Collectors, used to try to persuade me to listen to Australian music.”

She’s a clever cat, following in her mother’s footsteps into an Arts/Law degree at Canberra’s ANU for four years. And it was her law teachings which later allowed her to liaise between Council and the community, she said.

After seeing famous Aussie folk singer Clare Bowditch concert in those uni years, and during a period of self-discovery, Kirwin knew she needed to write music and sing permanently, sharing her experiences with others and helping them through music.

“It was 2006 and I had just realized that I might be gay, which, in Fijian culture was not an acceptable way to feel,” she said.

“In a flood of emotions, a friend of mine took me along to see Clare play, and I realised just how much beauty and soul can be held in a song.

“And that there is no wrong or right, there is only being. And being true to how you feel, is what life is all about.”

As fate would have it Kirwin met a Celtic harp player, also named Claire (with an ‘i’), just two years later, and the pair have since worked on several collaborations together.

Following in Claire’s parents’ footsteps, who sought a warmer climate on the Sunshine Coast, the couple, with Claire’s daughter from a previous relationship, moved there in 2012.

And they wedded earlier this year.

They now live in Mapleton, however Kirwin and her family lived in Nambour for eight years prior.

But don’t expect her to be rushing off to Nashville any time soon.

With community in the blood, Kirwin said she avoids major festivals, except the local ones, and prefers regional over mainstream.

“I want to see quality live music and venues as part of our tourism strategy. Where visitors stay in the hinterland, with good food wine and music to match.

“I want to create something in the town to give people hope.”

And we’re just glad she chose us as home.

Picture: Sunshine Coast Council Community Portfolio Councillor and music lover David Law proudly wears Kirwin’s Nambour T-shirt.

Caloundra Music Festival 2023 information and tickets:

Peace Run Records represents two local performers at this year’s Caloundra Music Festival, The Dawn Light, who play on Saturday at 12pm, and Jen Mize (pictured) with her band The Rough ‘N Tumble on Sunday at 7pm.

Kirwin has also brought two overseas artists to the festival for the first time, Canada’s Sierra Noble, on Sunday at 1pm, and Ryland Moranz, at 4pm.

Andrea Kirwin and The Yama-Nui Social Club play on Sunday at 6pm.