Sarah Mary Chadwick

Multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick is not a new face to Melbourne’s music community. After moving to Australia from her native New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Sarah spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. Eventually becoming tired of the collaborative requirements intrinsic to band life, Sarah shifted her focus to songwriting independently, drawing inspiration from artists like Peter Jefferies and Chris Knox: “weird old New Zealand musicians” who tinker away and work for decades for “little to no commercial success.” This inspiration is obvious in Sarah’s performance as she simultaneously savours and mocks the pedestal that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that “it’s a position of power being on a microphone” and how “it’s a desperate demand to be seen. It’s funny and really sad.”

Following the release of her critically-acclaimed seventh full-length album, Me And Ennui Are Friends Baby, Chadwick is taking to Sydney’s most beautiful listening room at Phoenix Central Park for a captivating in-the-round confessional. Wielding nothing more than a piano and a microphone, this is set to be a devastating distillation of the soul.