BIO

May 2024

Award winning songwriter Alana Wilkinson continues to emerge as one of the most loved artists on the Australian scene.

2024 is making a memorable mark for Wilkinson - kicking off with standing ovations at Woodford Folk Festival, completing an extensive Festival of Small Halls tour with Scottish fiddler Ryan Young, touring theatres with Aussie rock legend Ross Wilson and heading to the US for an official showcase at Folk Alliance International.

Since 2018 Alana has turned heads with a string of triumphant (and much talked-about) major festival appearances (Woodford, Queenscliff, Blue Mountains, Nannup, Port Fairy) showcasing her wit, humour and insightful social commentary. Backed up by successively sold out headline shows and wonderfully received support spots for the likes of Ben Lee, Daryl Braithwaite, Tim Freedman, Fanny Lumsden, Clare Bowditch and Kav Temperley, Alana has enchanted diverse audiences across Australia.

Combining delicate melodies with disarmingly insightful vignettes about the human condition, Wilkinson is a smiling assassin. Her songs skewer ex-lovers, would-be suitors, ridiculous social norms and the absurd challenges of a suburban upbringing in a merciless, yet strangely affectionate way, leaving audiences feeling like they’re sitting in her living room, chatting about life over a steaming cuppa.

Equally at home in the intimate confines of a house concert or in the expansive surrounds of a festival Wilkinson engages audiences with revealing and hilarious stories and songs that seep into the consciousness.

Alana Wilkinson has guitar, will travel. She’s completed an extensive Porch Sessions tour with good friends Harrison Storm and Jack the Fox in 2019 and in early 2020 she set out on the Festival of Small Halls autumn circuit with Scotland’s Paul McKenna Band which was due to take over twenty small regional communities across Australia as well as the Port Fairy Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival in Canberra until Covid hit, cutting it all short and putting the music world on pause.

But heck, all of that on the back of the release of just two singles! Alana’s debut offering Closer received extensive national airplay on ABC Radio and was joined in 2019 by Partner in Crime which also achieved triple j play. Alana achieved an unrealised life goal in 2019 when her songs found themselves on rotation for shoppers in retail outlets.

Hello Kmart!

In 2021 Alana welcomed her son Rafferty into the world, albeit very early with a 24 week arrival. With a 3 month stint in the NICU, a dramatic flood evacuation and a year of home oxygen, Raffy has been a constant source of song inspiration. ‘The Haemoglobin Song’, a groovy stank-face uke tune penned to help Raffy avoid his third blood transfusion and ‘With a Boob Out’ a laugh-out-loud song about new motherhood and accidentally flashing the postman, are the newest crowd favourites.

In 2023 Alana's song 'Dream Big' won the renowned Roddy Read Songwriting Award. 'Dream Big' will be included on her exquisite debut LP recorded and coproduced with Paul Ruske (Kyle Lionhart, Gretta Ziller) due August 2024.

Alana’s recorded output will explode confetti-style with the release of this long awaited record which sees Alana expand her palate of musical colours and textures and delivers the dreamy and inspiring body of work that audiences have fallen in love with at her shows.

Alana Wilkinson in all her sunshiny glory, is always one to watch.