In 2016, you and the Brodsky Quartet released With Love and Fury featuring songs by 10 Australian composers based on poems by Judith Wright. Did that inspire you to create The Glad Tomorrow with the Australian String Quartet, featuring songs by 10 Australian composers based on poems of Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker)?

It’s funny, gut instinct is how I make all my creative decisions and the Judith Wright/Brodsky collaboration just felt a beautiful thing. But through that process I discovered that Judith Wright and Oodgeroo called each other ‘shadow sisters’ so I actually discovered this relationship between two women I had previously no idea about. They were both very strong feminist women and it’s due to women like them that women of today enjoy the freedoms we have.

Katie Noonan and ASQKatie Noonan and the Australian String Quartet. Photo © Wilk

Oodgeroo, particularly, as a First Nations artist and activist, was at the forefront at the 1967 Referendum and was the first Indigenous woman to run for parliament. Not only that, she was a mother and a wonderful teacher and an incredible poet.

I first read an Oodgeroo poem when I was seven and...