Indigenous singer and actor Della Rae Morrison has turned her country into a symphonic tune. On holidays on the land of the Bibbulum, a sub-group of the Noongar people of Western Australia, she took in the Porongurup Range, the Toolbrunup Peak, the Blackwood River and onto the Derbal Yerrigan, or Swan River.

Della Rae Morrison. Photograph supplied

When Perth Festival Artistic Director and composer Iain Grandage heard the song and lyrics that arose out of her adventure, “he loved it”, says Morrison, who is now preparing to perform her original song Boodja Koorndarminy as part of Perth Festival’s Dreams of Place concerts with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and West Australian Youth Orchestra, with orchestrations by Grandage.

“It’s been a huge healing process for me and taken a lot of self-reflection to believe in myself, but it will also be a dream come true,” says Morrison, who last year starred as the eponymous spiritual figure in Hecate, an all-Noongar take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth at Perth Festival.

“I never thought I would sing again after enduring some damage to my vocal cords in a physical assault that I endured in 2016 … but now here...