Review: The Captivating Versatile Powerhouse CASEY DONOVAN Delivers A Fantastic Concert At Sydney Festival's Speaker's Corner

Saturday 15th January 2022, 8:30pm, Speaker's Corner

The multi-talented Casey Donovan delivered a captivating concert at Sydney Festival, showcasing her vocal versatility and ability to tap into the true emotion of the music she sings. In the shadows of St Mary's Cathedral in the pop-up open air venue, the one-hour concert was the perfect Covid safe escape from the real world.

During the one-hour concert, Donovan, in a shimmering cocktail dress, delivered a wonderfully broad range of songs, interspersed with anecdotes and casual patter that set up songs and also expressed the performer's candid honesty. With songs ranging from Bachelor Girl's Buses and Trains to Lady Gaga's Born This Way, Carole King's You've Got A Friend to her own original Where Do I Find Love, Donovan ensures that this is not simply a concert of 'stand up and sing' but a true interpretation of the music and lyrics, connecting to the underlying meaning and emotion of the songs in a way that many performers can only dream of. She infuses a soulful emotional connection, delivering incredibly poignant renditions that range from passionate and vulnerable, playful and sassy, and powerful and pleading, all while ensuring the songs have depth and 'light and shade'. She uses the full range of her powerhouse voice while ensuring the renditions have texture and depth, understanding the contrast of restrained and soaring phrases adds to the emotional nuance of the interpretations.

For this concert, Donovan shared that she's trying out adding a new song to her repertoire, a rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which hopefully she will keep in her line up for future concerts as more audiences need to experience her take on this beautiful classic. Her playful styling of Dolly Parton's Nine To Five should also be a good incentive for audiences to secure tickets to see Donovan in the upcoming NINE TO FIVE, THE MUSICAL as she expresses a delightfully cheeky interpretation complete with brilliantly expressive facial expressions. While Casey Donovan's engagement with the Sydney Festival was limited to one night only, hopefully Sydney (and Australian) audiences will have the opportunity to experience a similar concert from the "Triple Treat" performer.

https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/casey-donovan

https://www.caseydonovan.com/

Photos: Yaya Stempler

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