Our Mentors

Francesca de Valence is a multi-award-winning Australian songwriter, founder of I Heart Songwriting Club, and co-founder of Whitsundays Songwriter Festival. With a heroic song catalogue of over 700 songs, 2023 saw Francesca co-writing with USA superstar Toni Childs, Aussie Bull sisters, Vika and Linda, and EMI sweetheart Mark Sholtez, as well as many cuts. Bryce Sainty released their song “When You Walked Into The Room” garnering over 250,000 streams in its first 3 months of release. Australian songbird Mirusia recorded and performed their song “Raise a Glass” on her Netherlands tour 2023. And young queer neuro-divergent Victorian artist who had over 250,000 Spotify streams on her debut album, Kaiyah Mercedes, has just released their co-written single “How to Get Over You”.

With a background in tertiary, secondary and primary music education (M.Mus, B.Mus, B.Ed), Francesca has written a monthly column for Songwriting Magazine UK, produced a fortnightly ABC Radio songwriting segment and continues to facilitate songwriting workshops nationally and internationally for organisations and PROs including APRA AMCOS (Australia/New Zealand) & IMRO (Ireland). She also hosts the inspiring podcast “The Magic of Songwriting” with over 20,000 listeners.  Through her visionary work as founder of the online songwriting club – I Heart Songwriting Club – Francesca is revolutionising the songwriting space, helping birth 25,000 songs and changing the lives of thousands of songwriters worldwide.

Simon Shapiro is a classic story telling and award winning singer-songwriter, though best known for his work in support of other artists, writing songs with and for established artists such as Darryl Braithwaite, 1927 and Shannon Noll.

As a musician, Simon has toured with international acts including Martika, Limahl, 1927, Belinda Carlisle and shared the stage with industry giants such as Simple Minds, Roxette and Michael McDonald. Specific to country music, Simon co-wrote the hit song ‘Beyond These City lights’ which Jayne Denham took to the top of the country charts in 2013.

‘City Talks’ from Simon’s first solo album won the Park Music Film Music festival Gold prize for soundtrack and was described by the American film music magazine as “the best power ballad that Ryan Adams didn’t perform”. ‘Lover Of Life’ , also from Simon’s first solo album, was a finalist in the Nashville Songwriters association awards in the country music category.

Simon has won the Australian Songwriters association songwriter of the year, APRA songwriters award at MusicOz and was bass player for iconic Aussie band 1927 for 10 years.

Helen Shanahan is a folk singer/songwriter from Perth, Western Australia. Helen’s observations and introverted reflections of everyday situations are beautifully captured in her music, which can best be described as contemporary folk/pop with a strong acoustic feel. Helen graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) majoring in voice. Helen was signed to Mushroom Music Publishing in 2015.

Her debut album ‘Every Little Sting’ was released in May 2017, and was produced by Nashville producer Brad Jones (Missy Higgins, Bob Evans).  In 2018 Helen won the Western Australian Music Industry ‘Song of the Year’ award for her song ‘I Only Hide’.

2021 saw Helen learn the ropes of motherhood with her new daughter Bonnie, while singing backing vocals for international artist Tim Minchin and supporting Missy Higgins at the Fremantle Prison. Her sophomore album Canvas was released in 2022, described by Jeff Jenkins (STACK Magazine) as “poetic and damn near perfect”. 2023 saw Helen support the legendary Jackson Browne and homegrown legends The Waifs along with being nominated for WAM Folk act of the year. 2024 has seen Helen support Peter Garrett (Midnight Oil) and write for ARIA Award-winning artists Vika and Linda Bull.

Roz Pappalardo is a force of nature. A distinctive and accomplished vocalist, songwriter, and creative producer, she is passionate about producing honest and compelling stories through music and theatre.  Her songwriting credits include solo albums, several records with folk act women in docs, and (more recently) a prolific duets collaboration with Anthony Dettori as part of the spacious, earthy alt-country duo Lontano.

She has also written and performed in a compelling array of musical theatre productions, has written songs for and directed major community arts projects like Soldiers Wife, Big Sky Girls and Songs of Murray Street. She has a day job as a cultural content programmer for major festivals and venues – for the last decade as Artistic Director of all of the arts and cultural venues in Cairns  Regional Council and currently Senior Producer, MONA (Museum of New and Old Art).  She wears many hats, and they all go very comfortably with cowboy boots.

A critically acclaimed, classically trained artist, Gretta Ziller’s career to date has seen her accrue two Golden Guitar nominations, with her single 5,4,3,2,1 also currently sitting just shy of 500K individual streams on Spotify alone. Destined for a life in the creative arts, Ziller was able to whistle before she could talk, hailing as the token musician in a family of farmers and going on to take up the violin when she was just 3 years old. Picking up other instruments along the way, including the bagpipes, Ziller went on to complete a Bachelor of Music at Melbourne University, majoring in voice and starting her musical career as an opera singer and teaching the notoriously complex art that is the bagpipes.

Over the years, Ziller’s potent talents have garnered resounding praise with each new release, including two full length albums, an acoustic album and her debut EP which released back in 2014. Armed with a sharp self-awareness alongside her irresistible blend of modern Americana, blues and beyond, 2022 saw Ziller support Australian legends Ian Moss and Troy Cassar-Daley for their Together Alone tour, a tour which remains one of her career highlights to date. But the talented Melbourne artist also continues to burgeon her own individual fanbase alongside her trademark sound, with the release of All These Walls set to stun both on and off the stage.