Emma Donovan will take to the stage with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this week for a NAIDOC Week concert titled Take Me to the River — a show that blends iconic soul music with intimate stories of family, Country and homecoming on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.
The concert draws its name from a classic soul song that Donovan did not write, but says belongs to her all the same. Her daughters appear in the accompanying video, giggling in the back of a vintage Holden wagon as the Gumbaynggirr Country of her late mother rolls past outside — bushland where the Nambucca River meets the Pacific Ocean.
Soul legends reimagined through an orchestral lens
The set list for the NAIDOC Week show is drawn primarily from the record collections of Donovan's father — albums by Sam Cooke, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Etta James and other cornerstones of the classic soul canon. But Donovan is emphatic that the concert is more than a covers night.
"These are such big, iconic songs," she says, "but I don't want anybody to think this is just a bunch of covers."
Working with arranger Alex Turley, Donovan has been sending ideas recorded on her ukulele, and bringing in physical objects — seeds, shells and clapsticks — to help shape the sound. The goal is to transplant the music into her own landscape. "How can I make it feel like I'm singing down at the island in Nambucca?" she asks. "How can we imitate something like the whistle trees or the she-oak in a song?"
Turley's bespoke arrangements give the familiar material a new orchestral scale, while Donovan layers storytelling drawn from her years of theatrical work with the Black Arm Band. "A lot of it's based on me spinning a little yarn," she says.
A homecoming rooted in memory and family
The show's emotional core is Donovan's recent return to Nambucca Heads, the Gumbaynggirr Country where her mother's family has deep roots. Childhood memories flood back easily: large family fishing trips to the river, digging up worms in the yard with buckets, bamboo rods her grandmother called — for reasons no one can fully explain — Ned Kelly rods.
"When we were kids, we grew up on that river," Donovan says. "Nan used to take us up the river, fishing. All the family fishing. We'd do it together in big groups."
Nine years after her mother's death, the joy of being home carries a bittersweet weight. Her daughters, Kwilena and Jirriga, are now learning their late grandmother's Gumbaynggirr language. They attend the same school their great-grandfather once went to, back when it formed part of Bowraville Mission. Even the vintage Holden in the concert video was chosen deliberately — because, as Donovan notes, "Poppy used to drive that car."
A long road back to Country
Donovan's path to settling on the mid-north coast was not straightforward. Born in Sydney's west, she grew up in Redfern — close enough to Koori Radio to deliver song requests in person. Two decades ago, joining the Black Arm Band gave her what she describes as a sense of family and belonging among the Melbourne music community. Three albums followed as the frontwoman of soul-funk outfit the Putbacks.
In more recent years she attempted to put down roots in Western Australia with her father, a Naaguja and Yamatji man, making the drive across the Nullarbor two or three times. "But it was just too much for me, gigging the east coast all the time," she says.
Her 2024 album Til My Song Is Done marked a clear turn toward country, gospel and family. Take Me to the River extends that journey further, expanding the personal into the orchestral. "I went home and I planted my feet back there," she says — and this week, she brings that story to the concert stage.
