Hilary Geddes is ready to make some noise. Like so many of us, she was dormant and subdued during the long winter months of lockdown. But now, like the jacaranda all over her home city of Sydney, she is ready to burst into action and enchant the city this spring, with a new EP, tours to plan, and multiple gigs as part of the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival (SIWJF), which kicks off tonight.

Ironically, Geddes had actually planned for July and August to be a quiet period: after a huge start to 2021 that included the debut album from the Hilary Geddes Quartet, being selected as the 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow, the premiere of a mixed media project for TURA New Music’s No Borders program inspired by her childhood spent growing up on the Murrumbidgee River, another EP with her garage band The Buoys, and lots more besides, she had put aside some time to take a break, see friends, travel to see her family, and just generally down tools for a spell.

Little did she know.