Geelong’s FARAH comes home to Queenscliff Music Festival

Geelong’s FARAH comes home to Queenscliff Music Festival FOR FARAH, music started where words ran out. “As a child, singing gave me a place to feel things that I couldn’t otherwise feel or understand,” the Geelong singer-songwriter said. “It provided a sense of belonging that I couldn’t find elsewhere.” This November, that hard-won and quietly powerful voice lands on home turf when FARAH plays two sets at the 2026 Queenscliff Music Festival, appearing on both the Saturday and Sunday of the three-day event, held on Wadawurrung Country from 27 to 29 November. It is a milestone moment for an artist whose project only took shape last year through the GRID Series, and whose path to the stage has been anything but straightforward. A cancer diagnosis in 2023 upended her life and rewired her songwriting. “Cancer was the catalyst for shifting the way I was experiencing life. I moved from living for others into actively living for myself,” FARAH says. “Now, I write for myself. I’ve become much stronger, more confident and more comfortable being as brutally honest as possible in my lyric writing, without shrinking or minimising.” That honesty has been shaped by deep work with local practitioners, including Geelong vocologist Kristin Symes, who opened the artist’s eyes to the connection between trauma and the voice. One session of chest voice exercises, encouraging her to take up as much space as possible, brought sudden, heavy tears. “This singular event changed everything for me regarding my understanding of trauma and the voice,” FARAH says. The result is a live show that doesn’t hold back. She describes her music as an outstretched hand, and her gigs have a habit of dissolving the line between performer and audience. “I’ve played a few shows now where just about all of us are crying together at one point or another during the set,” FARAH says. “I try to always say the hard thing.” Playing Queenscliff, just down the road from home, makes this one special. “As a local Geelong artist, I feel honoured to have been included in the lineup alongside some of my favourite artists,” FARAH says. “If I can leave even just one person feeling lighter, more connected or more hopeful, then I’ll have done what I came to do.” FARAH plays the Queenscliff Music Festival on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November. For tickets or to view the full lineup, visit qmf.net.au //SPONSORED CONTENT