Come home to the National Folk Festival 2022 in Canberra

She wanted to find a way to address the things which became our focus during the pandemic - home, belonging, family, togetherness - and a way to remind us how much we took for granted before our lives were shaken up.

"Until it was taken away from us, I don't think we realised how desperately we needed live music in our lives," says the ARIA award-winning singer-songwriter.

"I certainly needed it as a performer, but equally as an audience member, and there has been a huge hole in my heart that can only be filled by live music and the gathering of like-minded people.

"This festival really is themed around the ideas of finding your home, finding your family and finding your folk."

There's a deeper sense of home too.

Noonan was keen to "broaden the church of folk" to reflect the Australia of today.

"There has been a fairly strong focus on Anglo Celtic folk music, which of course is part of our folk definition, but the Australia of 2022 and the Australia of 1967 are vastly different in terms of our multiculturalism," she says.

"One of my priorities has been to reflect the diversity of musicians and stories that we have in this country."

Noonan says she is honoured to be the caretaker of the festival.

"To my knowledge, it's the oldest national music festival in Australia, and has certainly been an important date on the national cultural calendar for 55 years, which is just incredible," she says.

"The fact the festival has managed to stay afloat, not just through the past couple of years, but at the beginning when times were tough, is a testament to the power of community and the power of the arts to bring us together."

Noonan has previously spent four years as artistic director of the Queensland Music Festival and was the musical director of the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

"I do enjoy being on the other side of the stage and thinking in different ways, thinking about ways to curate programming," she says.

"For me, everything always needs to have a why, it needs to have a sociological why and a spiritual, curatorial framework so that it's not just a sort of gathering of people that doesn't have a narrative connected through it.

"So this sense of family and home and belonging and the fact that Canberra is a Ngunnawal word meaning meeting place has been fun to explore and we're very much celebrating Canberra's cultural identity."

It's the 30th year the festival has been held on Ngunnawal land. From 1967 to the early 1990s, the festival was held in different sites around the country before landing in Canberra for the annual Easter event.

"It was a priority of mine to acknowledge that we are on Ngunnawal country, working with the elders to incorporate the language, honoring the fact that we're on unseeded Aboriginal land," she says.

"There's a dedicated stage, the Narragunnawali Stage, an elder's yarning circle and we're opening and closing the festival with First Nation's royalty."

One of those performers is Archie Roach. Of Gunditjmara and Bundjalung heritage, Roach will introduce the opening concert, performing his song Let Love Rule as a duet with 13-year-old Layla Barnett.

Roach wants to be known as a singer-songwriter, "not just an indigenous musician".

He grew up listening to the Scottish music of his foster parents, started playing the guitar and piano, and after some hard years formed a band with his future wife, Ruby Hunter.

His first song, Took the Children Away, reflected his experience as a child of the Stolen Generation and was released in 1988.

In 2013 it was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry.

He's always considered himself a storyteller.

"My songs have a story that I tell from the stage," he says.

"They might reflect something that has happened in my life, or be influenced by where I was at some stage."

At just 13, Barnett is honoured to take the stage with Roach.

Hailing from Gubbi Gubbi country in south-east Queensland, Barnett was discovered by Noonan at the Eumundi School of Rock in 2020 and sees the folk festival as a great opportunity to learn from other musicians such as Roach.

"I'm really excited to be performing with Archie," she says.

"His music has such a message and I feel everyone has the right to speak their mind and get their message across.

"It's important to remember what has happened in the past and to be looking at how things can be improved."

Reviving indigenous languages is a big part of that for Ngunnawal artist Alinta Barlow.

She will close the opening concert singing My Island Home in the Ngunnawal language. She's been working on the piece with linguists from the Winanggaay Ngunnawal Language Group, who represent a wide range of Ngunnawal families, and is proud to be sharing her heritage with the festival audience.

The song is currently available on the National Folk Festival website for audiences to learn ahead of time.

"I didn't have the privilege of learning the language when I was growing up but it's become something I want to teach future generations and being able to do that through music is a wonderful thing," she says.

She taught herself the guitar in her teens, went on to study music at university, and the festival is her biggest stage yet.

"I think it's great that we're recognising the Indigenous contribution to folk music," she says.

"Folk music is all about culture and history and for Indigenous music to be separated from that isn't right."

From start to finish the festival will touch on this idea, the "one family" of Australian music, a true national festival.

On April 18 the closing concert will be a multi-generational affair featuring Sammy Butcher and Neil Murray of the Warumpi Band, performing with Butcher's 12-year-old grandson Jack and George Butcher's daughter Crystal.

Yothu Yindi will sound off the night singing their iconic song Treaty, 30 years since its ground-breaking release.

"By closing the festival with this theme, with Yothu Yindi singing Treaty in the 30th year of the festival on Ngunnawal country, it is a reminder that music has its own special power," says Noonan.

After a two-year hiatus the National Folk Festival is back with a vengeance. Running from April 14 to 18 at Exhibition Park in Canberra, "The National" will feature live music from more than 200 performers, as well as a children's festival, themed bars, food and market stalls, roving entertainment and an engaging, multi-discipline arts program including craft, dance and art. Here are some things to lock in.

The humble uke has allowed many people to discover, and rediscover, the joy of creating and sharing music. With a large following and regular gatherings in Canberra and many festivals around the country, the URoC shows are ones not to miss.

Canberra's own Omar Musa debuts at the folk festival in two spoken word sessions and he'll also perform at the closing concert. A Malaysian-Australian author, poet, rapper and visual artist, Musa's work often deals with the themes of migration, Australian racism, violence, masculinity and loneliness.

Dancing and sharp objects? What could go wrong? Coral Reid is a fiddle and dance workshop leader specialising in fiddle tunes, step clog dancing, and traditional rapper sword dancing - the art of weaving five sword dancers into complicated knots, and getting back out again. No prior knowledge required, just turn up and give it a go.

A silly circus adventure for ages three to six. Roving throughout the festival daily, they'll be looking for energetic and giggle-ready kids to help solve a whole host of fun physical challenges in this smile-inducing, interactive show. Check the program for all the interactive Big Top and Tiny Tots shows and workshops.

Celebrate some of music's biggest names. Songs of Joni Mitchell features Melody Pool, Queenie Van de Zandt, Zulya, Parvyn, Jo Davie, Angela Newcomb, Melanie Horsnell, Little Quirks, The Maes, Kim Yang, Sarah Humphries and Katie Noonan.