At the end of a year songwriting, competing on The Voice, performing for TEDx and preparing to embark on a new musical project, Vendulka heard personally devastating news.
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On the morning of New Year's Eve the singer-songwriter was at Woodford Folk Festival when she was told "Cobargo had burnt down".
"I was inconsolable, as it feels like a home to me," she said.
"Cobargo Folk Festival has been so integral to my music development and my decision to become a musician.
"And to know people from the area, that was the most devastating part of the fires to me."
A full-time musician, the 22-year-old spends a lot of her life on the road and said it was "pretty confronting" to see so many areas burnt in the recent bushfire crisis.
Still, seeing green shoots of regrowth in forests as they started to grow again was like seeing "little bits of hope".
"I think the biggest positive thing to take from it all is the strength of community, and people that you think would be broken but they're not because of the people around them," Vendulka said.
She will perform her first-ever show in Bega this month, supported by local country musician Felicity Dowd, where she plans on playing her heartfelt originals as well as folky versions of the indie electronic pop project she has just embarked on, called Aya Yves.
She was speaking to Australian Community Media from Cairns preparing to return to Canberra and begin filming a music video for one of the project's songs, the name of which was still being kept under wraps.
"I made it almost a year ago now, it feels like it's been a million years waiting for it to come together!" she said.
"It's pretty different to everything I've done before, which is why I've made it under Aya Yves."
The project was seeded two years ago when Vendulka had an intense dream where she was about to appear on a stage and people were chanting the name Aya, waiting for her to appear.
"I've been in the folk world for so long and I love it," she said.
"But I'm enjoying the artistic challenge, writing with other people, coming up with new and different music and getting more experimental with production.
"I still want it to be emotionally connecting, that's my number one priority; that's what I think makes music good."
Vendulka reached the top 24 of X Factor in 2012 as a 14-year-old and then returned the following year for a similar result.
Last year, television audiences spotted her again on The Voice, where she was joined by Boy George onstage to sing Karma Chameleon.
About a year on from that performance she said she was glad to have had the chance to perform on the show as it was a "huge thing", but it now felt surreal.
"It feels like it didn't happen in a way, because it's a high adrenaline situation so it's hard for it to become ingrained in your memory," she said.
"Obviously it definitely happened and I remember it happening, I mean who sings with celebrity judges!
"But I was pretty focused on writing music that year, so once my time on the show ended there was a lot of work I could be doing as that was taking up all my time."
Vendulka will perform at Mumbulla School Hall, Bega on Saturday, February 22 from 7pm.
Tickets are $20, to purchase click here.
For more information visit the event's Facebook page.