Katie Noonan finds solace in music and Trent Dalton's words

Katie Noonan, the ARIA award-winning singer, has revealed how author Trent Dalton's youthful diaries helped her remember the power of love during a difficult time in her life. Her marriage of 26 years was ending, and she was struggling to cope with the aftermath.

"I remember that day so vividly," Katie, 49, says. "It was quite intense actually, watching that play and the searing honesty of how hard [it is] in the trenches, being married and being artists."

A chance encounter

Katie and Trent, who first met 25 years ago, have joined creative forces. They had known each other since 2001, when they were enthusiastic young creatives from Brisbane; he was a fledgling journalist who had come to interview her, the breakout star with the ethereal voice from the indie pop rock band named george.

After the show, Katie bumped into Trent, the author of the international bestseller Boy Swallows Universe, and his wife and co-writer of the play, Fiona Franzmann.

"She really let me know she was going through one of the toughest times in her life," Trent recalls. "And that was where my relationship with Katie kind of got a bit more poignant."

Finding solace in music

Katie Noonan is adjusting to a new pace of life at her Sunshine Coast home with Saffy her loyal staffy by her side. Six weeks later, Katie was out of the family home and living alone in a new place on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

"There have been days that were catastrophically hard and dark and lonely and depressed and all those things," Katie says.

But music has always been her best friend, and so she turned to it. Exploring different music genres is a hallmark of Katie's career. One of her projects is the Australian Vocal Ensemble [AVE], an a capella quartet that celebrates the work of Australian writers such as Tim Winton and the late David Malouf.

Katie Noonan finds solace in music, especially in difficult times. She knew Trent and his writing would be perfect as AVE's next muse. "I reached out to him and said, 'Do you have any words?'"

He had plenty. He had 153 pages of thoughts, lyrics and dreams he wrote as a lovesick young man falling for Fiona. He said Katie could have them.

The result was not just a new piece for AVE but an album about love — the wonder and the heartache — and a creative outlet that has helped Katie on the road to healing.

A new chapter

Recorded live in Katie Noonan's lounge room, the album Alone but all one features her vocals and piano accompanied by a string quartet.

Katie Noonan says her latest songs just "fell out of her", spawned from a place of grief and sorrow.

"It was an album that I never intended to write," she says. "[It] just fell out from a place of deep sadness and sorrow and loss and grief and not knowing who I was anymore."

Amid that torment, she received Trent's 153 pages, his words celebrating "the wonderment" of new love — and a sliver of light entered.

"That was a great gift for me that I needed because I couldn't write those," Katie says. "I was deep in the other world."