Event
Festival of Small Halls
The Festival of Small Halls rolls into Sandford on Sunday 19 January 2025, bringing with it three incredible folk artists; Ireland’s Susan O’Neill, Monique Clare and Cathy Diver!
The Festival of Small Halls is a national series of tours that takes the best folk and contemporary acoustic artists performing at two of Australia’s largest festivals and sends them on the road to tiny halls in communities all over Australia.
The Sandford Hall gig will be the 700th Festival of Small Halls show, and will be celebrating in style with a stellar line up of world-class folk artists.
Susan O’Neill is a songwriter of many depths. With a timeless voice that is equal parts balm and blowtorch, she is audacity personified, a free spirit; a real performer. She has been a long-time collaborator on the Irish scene with the release of ‘In The Game’ her collaboration album with Mick Flannery being the most recent.
Wielding a cello, powerhouse vocals and magnetic onstage energy, Monique Clare packs a punch. She’s a multi award-winning songwriter who’s elicited cathartic tears and belly laughs from audiences around the world with her deeply personal storytelling and arresting authenticity. Her career has ranged from playing cello with Eminem to a crowd of 80,000 people, to teaching music in war-torn Afghanistan and leading hikers up mountainsides for sunrise concerts.
Like any good backyard chemist, Cathy Diver specialises in cooking the world around her into something fizzy, novel or transcendental. Swimming pool sunny, occasionally harrowing, with a psychedelic bent, Cathy’s songs are electrified by her astrologically compatible band. Cathy has toured significantly off the back of her first two singles, supporting the likes of Julia Jacklin, Tim Rogers and Carla Geneve, as well as co-forming indie label, Undine Records. 2024 has seen her perform with her band at Party in the Paddock, Great Escape Festival and MONA Foma, as well as supporting You Am I, Darren Hanlon and Didirri. Her latest single, Getaway is the second cut off her forthcoming debut album, out February 7, 2025.
Cathy Diver.
As well as incredible music, the Sandford Cricket Club will be running a BBQ with food available for sale on the night, as well as a bar selling beer, wine, pre-mix and soft drinks.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to see some of the world’s best folk artists, in one of the world’s best small halls (well, we think so anyway!).
