It’s hard to explain exactly what you’ll experience when ARIA award winning a cappella quartet The Idea Of North perform at this year’s Noosa Jazz Festival, but an experience it’s guaranteed to be.

“There’s one thing to sing in a group and there’s another thing to sing in an a cappella group where we face the challenge of covering for the musicians that aren’t there,” the quartet’s soprano Sally Cameron says.

The quartet that James Morrison refers to as ‘the best contemporary a cappella group in the country’ are known for their distinct sound and style which crosses the genres of jazz, folk, gospel, pop, classical and comedy – performed entirely without instruments but with a little bit of vocal percussion thrown in for good measure.

“This brings benefits and difficulties, as sometimes we emulate musician’s sounds, our bass singer being a vocal percussionist who provides a bass line and rhythm. Then there are times we don’t do any percussive sounds at all and it’s just the straight four voices, which requires impeccable tuning and an excellent sense of time.”

Although their studio records have been hugely successful, Sally believes the real magic happens when the four voices take to the stage and confront a live audience.

“People tell us it’s quite different seeing us live and hearing our music on our albums as we do quite a lot of comedy numbers, and the banter we have between each other is a very big part of the show, which of course you don’t get in the recording.”

The story of The Idea Of North started in 1993 when the four original members, students from the Canberra School of Music (ANU) befriended each other and started jamming for friends and family, the requests for songs growing exponentially over the years.

“There came a time when their soprano was going to move to Sydney so they decided to record the music that they had learned together as a kind of keepsake and it turned out to be the first of 10 albums that TIOF have made,” Sally explains.

In 1998 the friends transformed their hobby into a full time gig, proving a good move as their audiences grew and a new era of international invitations, festivals and chart success was ushered in.

“We won the ARIA for ‘Best Jazz Album’ in 2010 for our seventh album ‘Feels Like Spring’ which definitely had to be a highlight which none of us really saw coming. It was really, really special to be recognised in that way because we work really hard to get good results.”

‘Feels Like Spring’ was a collaboration with their longtime friend and mentor James Morrison, who the quartet consider to be their honorary fifth member.

“He’s actually been there since quite early on in the group’s formation, so he’s definitely been a big part of the evolution of TIOF, having played on three of our albums. We’ve performed live together and guested on his albums. He’s such a great mentor who we go to regularly for advice because he knows so much about the world of entertainment and about music.”

The group’s tenth studio album, ‘Smile’, will be released this month, allowing a small window for fans to familiarise themselves with the new repertoire before TIOF perform in Noosa for the Jazz Festival.

“We usually write our set list on the day, but we will be doing a range of some of our newer tunes, some of our fresh stuff and some tunes that have been with us for almost all of our 20 years. We’ve done Noosa Jazz Festival before so we know what to expect. The locals love their jazz and it attracts jazz lovers from all over Australia, so we will try to keep everyone’s interest level up throughout the show.”

According to Sally, the business of a cappella is booming, with interest in the style starting from a younger age then witnessed ten years ago.

“To be honest I think this is probably partly because of music reality shows and shows like ‘Glee’ which are really helpful for young kids getting into it and people seeing it as a legitimate career. There are so many more groups now and we are really happy to be a part of educating the next generation of a cappella singers in Australia.”

The Idea Of North Perform at The Noosa Jazz Festival August 31. ‘Smile’ will be released August 16.