There are fresh starts, and then there’s the kind of fresh start currently happening in the life of Jade MacRae, an Australian singer-songwriter now based in Central Oregon and playing her first show in the region Friday night in Redmond.

Over the past five years, MacRae has relocated to a new hemisphere, ended one significant relationship and started another, left behind a successful music career to start anew, switched up her style, recorded a new album in said new style and set off to establish herself as an artist in a country where she’s just getting started.

“It’s an exciting, slightly scary time,” she said in a phone interview.

MacRae was born in the Sydney area of Australia to two jazz-musician parents, and she grew up loving jazz and soul music, and learning to play piano and violin. In her early 20s, however, she signed a deal with a major label that envisioned her as a pop star.

“It’s not like I was forced to do anything, but I went along with it, and I explored the pop world to some success,” she said. (MacRae landed a handful of singles on the Australian pop charts in the mid-2000s.) “But the longer I stayed in it, I just realized it wasn’t satisfying me.”

So she took some time away from her solo career and joined the touring band of blues giant Joe Bonamassa as a background vocalist. Around the same time, her first marriage ended, she said.

“That was a real soul-searching time for me,” she said. “I guess I decided to go back to my roots and give it another go and do what I’d wanted to do the whole time.”

What she’d wanted to do was write songs that mean something to her, and play with musicians she feels connected to, and sing jazz and soul songs. A steady gig in Bonamassa’s band gave her space to take her time and work on her solo music when the time was right.

The result is work that feels more authentic, more soulful — a “spiritual experience,” MacRae said.

She recorded 2020’s upbeat, bluesy and gospel-tinged album “Handle Me With Care,” which features contributions from her mother (on backing vocals) and father (on piano).

“That made it really special and really rewarding,” she said. “I was going through a lot of transition at that time and making that album was kind of like therapy for me.”

MacRae is in the middle of recording a follow-up, in between settling into her new life in Central Oregon. (“I came here during the pandemic and never left,” she said.) She and her husband are building a house, and they’ll move into it soon — MacRae’s first permanent residence since 2016, she said.

“It’s really humbling to start again, but it’s also really great just being able to have a fresh slate and to be establishing myself in a way that feels genuine,” she said. “It’s going to be a great feeling to put roots down.”

What: Jade MacRae, with Two Thirds Trio and Thomas T & The Blue Chips

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, doors open 6:30 p.m.

Where: Where: High Desert Music Hall, 818 SW Forest Ave., Redmond

Cost: $20 in advance, $25 at the door

Contact: highdesertmusichall.com