Woodfordia Inc
presents
Summer Tour 2023: Cygnet Folk Festival to Illawarra Folk Festival
featuring Emily Lubitz (AUS) and The Paul McKenna Band (SCO)

Very few artists can cradle your heart in their hands while they kick your ass, but after more than a decade touring with critically acclaimed indie-folk darlings Tinpan Orange, Emily Lubitz is striding out on her own.
With that timeless, aching quality that only the great voices have, Lubitz is every singer’s favourite singer, a captivating live performer who has won the hearts of audiences around the world, and yet she is more priestess than popstar, creating her own iconography that sears itself into the listener’s imagination.
Lubitz tells us stories about everyday things, but her voice transfigures them into works of beauty, like a messy bedroom suffused with golden morning light: “Sometimes we just need to pretend things are better than they are. Remember how it used to be. Sometimes we share pain that seems bottomless and we can only acknowledge it in a glance, while we try to keep it together, get the kids to bed, share a beer and put a record on.”
Lubitz is a veteran of the scene, having performed on some of the world’s biggest stages and collaborated with the likes of Paul Kelly, Martha Wainwright, Clare Bowditch and the album she recorded with old friend Mama Kin, and yet her solo work is imbued with the raw energy of a breakthrough artist.
Wandering through the material on Begin Again, her soon-to-be-released EP, one is often surprised by commonplace images from domestic life that rear up out of the darkness, saturated by a strange poetic force. This sense of the everyday uncanny, and of the magic behind the veil of suburbia, is the arrow in a technicolour musical bow.
A six-foot tall frontwoman with a gossamer voice,
Lubitz prowls the stage with the gravitas of a giant Edith Piaf stalking through a post-apocalyptic Laurel Canyon.
Emily’s exquisite, brushed-velvet vocal conjures a steady neck-hair raising waltz – The Age
Strikingly assured – Rolling Stone Australia

Called “The best folk band to have come out of Scotland in the last twenty years” by The New York Times, Paul McKenna has long been ranked among Scotland’s finest young singers and songwriters. Paul is armed with a powerful yet intensely emotive voice and passionate social conscience, often expressed through his songs, a combination that’s brought frequent comparisons to the great Dick Gaughan.
The Paul McKenna Bands’ newest release Breathe (2019) showcases Paul’s development as a songwriter and includes two co-writes with acclaimed Canadian songwriter Dave Gunning and another with one of Australia’s most respected songwriters, Liz Stringer. Produced by Mike Vass, this new release expands on the bands trademark sound with added instrumentation to enhance and focus on the original material.
Paul was a featured artist at the world renowned Transatlantic Sessions in 2019. Alongside Cara Dillon, Tim O’Brien, Molly Tuttle and the multi talented house band, he performed a string of shows across the UK.
He and his band – comprising Conor Markey (banjo/bouzouki/guitars) and Toby Shaer (percussion) – draw on both Scottish and Irish roots, in a dynamic, full-bodied array of original and traditional material, along with songs by like-minded authors.
The best folk band to have come out of Scotland in the last twenty years – New York Times
The best band of their generation – The Living Tradition
A band with the potential to dominate the Scottish/Irish traditional scene for the next twenty years – Fatea Magazine
MEDIA RESOURCES

Woodfordia Inc presents Festival of Small Halls Summer Tour 2023: Cygnet Folk Festival to Illawarra Folk Festival featuring The Paul McKenna Band (SCO) and Emily Lubitz (AUS)
Festival of Small Halls has announced that Emily Lubitz and The Paul McKenna Band will feature on the upcoming Summer Tour 2023: Cygnet Folk Festival to Illawarra Folk Festival.
THE PAUL MCKENNA BAND (SCO)
Called “The best folk band to have come out of Scotland in the last twenty years” by The New York Times, Paul McKenna has long been ranked among Scotland’s finest young singers and songwriters. Paul is armed with a powerful yet intensely emotive voice and passionate social conscience, often expressed through his songs, a combination that’s brought frequent comparisons to the great Dick Gaughan.
To download a high quality image, please click here
EMILY LUBITZ (AUS)
Very few artists can cradle your heart in their hands while they kick your ass, but after more than a decade touring with critically acclaimed indie-folk darlings Tinpan Orange, Emily Lubitz is striding out on her own.
With that timeless, aching quality that only the great voices have, Lubitz is every singer’s favourite singer, a captivating live performer who has won the hearts of audiences around the world.
To download a high quality image, please click here
Festival of Small Halls events take place in venues operating under current government Covid Safe regulations, and has stringent Workplace Health and Safety requirements for all travelling artists and crew. Under the terms and conditions of all events, you must not attend if you have any symptoms of Covid-19.
Please do your bit to protect others and keep your community safe.
The Festival of Small Halls Summer Tour is supported by the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative.
