[Hayley Dee Westenra]Biography

Hayley Dee Westenra (born 10 April 1987 in Christchurch) is a New Zealand soprano of Irish heritage. Her first album, Pure, reached #1 on the UK classical charts and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Miss Westenra has received awards for her contribution to the music of New Zealand and elsewhere in the world.

Westenra is the fastest-selling debut classical artist to date. In addition to her success at selling albums, she became an international star at the age of 16 when the first of her international albums were released. In August 2006, Westenra joined the Irish group Celtic Woman and is currently touring with them.

She has performed for dignitaries around the world. Miss Westenra is the youngest UNICEF Ambassador to date and has been lauded for her charitable contributions to the world.

Background information

Born | April 10, 1987 (1987-04-10) (age 20)
Christchurch, New Zealand ![Flag of New Zealand](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Flag_of_New_Zealand.svg/22px-

Biography

Early life

Westenra was born to Jill and Gerald Westenra and has two siblings, Sophie and Isaac. She comes from a musically inclined family: her grandmother Shirley Ireland was a singer and her grandfather was a pianist who played the piano accordion.

Her musical career began at the age of six when she was cast in the lead singing role of “Little Star” in her school’s Christmas play. She went to school at Cobham Intermediate. After the show, a teacher who had watched the performance approached her parents and informed them that their daughter had perfect pitch. The teacher encouraged Westenra to pick up a musical instrument to improve her abilities, and she began to take violin lessons. Along with the violin, she took up the piano and the recorder, and learned to read music by the age of seven. She began voice lessons and discovered a passion for musical theatre. By age 11, she had performed more than 40 times on stage. Out of these performances, she remembers not always getting the parts she wanted: “I got boy parts quite often. In ballet, there were not enough boys. So they ended up choosing half and half. I got chosen to wear the grey suit and the wig, and not the pretty dresses. In A Christmas Carol, I was Tiny Tim, so I got to be quite a sick, sick boy. There was a severe lack of singing boys and, at the time, it was quite disappointing.”

At the age of 12, Westenra entered a professional recording studio to record Walking in the Air, a demo album done for friends and family; only about 1000 copies were made. Some time later, after finishing her album, both Westenra and her sister, Sophie, busked in the Christchurch streets. The pair drew a large crowd, and one woman asked the girls if they had ever recorded anything. This woman turned out to be a journalist with CTV, and asked Westenra to appear on air.

A concert promotion company watched the show, and signed her to the Universal New Zealand label. The concert promoter who saw her and was responsible for this deal was Gray Bartlett, who had not even met Westenra in person. On this label, Westenra released a self-titled album of show tunes and light classical songs, as well as My Gift to You, a CD of Christmas music. As a result of her success in selling albums in New Zealand, she was offered and later received lessons from Dame Malvina Major.

International success

Although her albums were quite successful in New Zealand, Westenra was unknown worldwide until she landed a contract with Decca Records and recorded Pure, a CD of classical, light pop and traditional Māori songs. Decca’s UK president was also impressed with her voice when they signed her to the label, saying that she was “captivated by the beauty and expressiveness of her voice.” Pure enjoyed record-topping success. It became the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the UK classical charts. Pure sold 19,068 copies in its first week alone, quickly reached #1 on the UK chart, and entered the UK Pop Chart at #8. To date, over two million copies of Pure have been sold. In New Zealand Pure has been certified 10x platinum, making her the best-selling artist – regardless of genre – in the country’s history.

This album ensured that Decca would take her seriously. When the facts are presented about her fame today, some of her fame can be directly attributed to the way in which Decca promoted her. Although the traditional audience of classical crossover music is that of adult women, they also promoted her to children and teenagers. Westenra recorded the end-title song for Disney’s movie Mulan II. They also featured her on the national Radio Disney music education tour for middle-school students. David Horn, the producer of her live tv special which aired on PBS’ Great Performances, said, “Her singing is so gorgeous it’s reminiscent of the great boy-soprano sound of Anglican church choirs.” This special was entitled, Hayley Westenra: Live from New Zealand.

Decca has also promoted her on television. She took her first acting role on the US programme American Dreams (“Charade”), where she played guitar and sang “Who Painted the Moon Black?”.

While she was being promoted in Los Angeles, California, Marc Johnston, senior VP/GM for the Universal Classics Group, said, “When she was out there, people were giving her scripts to read, and she had a few rather impromptu auditions. So some film and TV roles are currently in the works.”

In November 2004, Westenra performed in a concert for Her Majesty The Queen, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and President George W. Bush.

In 2005, she was featured in the song “Bridal Ballad” that was recorded for the movie The Merchant of Venice. More recently, she was featured on the motion picture soundtrack for The New World for the song “Listen to the Wind”.

After releasing Pure, Westenra and her family moved to London. She continues to live in her own central London flat, even though her family subsequently returned home to Christchurch. Although she spent most of 2006 touring, she did her best to visit them when she could. Westenra was the 2004 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards winner of “Highest Selling New Zealand Album” and “International Achievement Award” On 20 February 2004, Prime Minister Helen Clark awarded her for being the first New Zealand artist to receive the tenfold platinum status in the New Zealand market, where she held the number one artist position for 18 weeks. She has won two Japanese Grammies for her work (Song of the Year, “Amazing Grace” and Album of the Year, Pure). Also in 2004, she began her world tour of New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the UK. At the Sydney Opera House she received a rare standing ovation. She concluded 2004 with a successful Christmas tour of the east coast of the United States as guest soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

In 2005, she released a new album called Odyssey. A mix of classical, pop, Celtic, and new age music, she co-wrote and arranged some of the tracks on the album, which was released in the United States on 18 October 2005. A more recent version of Odyssey was released in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2006, her 19th birthday. It has several new recordings not on the original album. Ending 2005, she made an appearance on Kurt Browning’s programme Gotta Skate, which aired on 18 December, in which she performed with Andrea Bocelli.

She spent the first half of 2006 performing as a supporting act for the pop- opera quartet Il Divo on a worldwide tour, though in March she performed several solo concerts in the U.S. as well. That tour officially ended in June, but was then extended by six performances. She then held several concerts in the UK and Germany through the end of the summer.

On 5 September 2006, Westenra was named as one of the ten outstanding young people in the world by the Junior Chamber International. On 13 November 2006 she participated in the dedication of the New Zealand War Memorial in London. Three of Miss Westenra’s great-uncles served in World War II, where one of them was killed.

Beyond her initial success

In August 2006, she joined Celtic Woman, and is featured on their second major DVD/CD album, Celtic Woman: A New Journey, which was released January 30, 2007 and immediately hit the Billboard Top 200 music chart at #4. She will be touring with the group in the United States in 2007, with scheduled appearances in 88 venues across the country.

Westenra’s third international album, Treasure, was released on 26 February 2007 in the UK. All of the songs on this CD were chosen by Hayley. Her record company had “no say in the matter. I basically didn’t let them in on what I was recording until the last minute so they had no choice. I didn’t give them much room to disagree. Ha, ha, ha.” Tracks on this album include “E Pari Ra”, “One Fine Day”, “Let Me Lie”, “Danny Boy”, and “Abide With Me”. Westenra co- wrote four of the fifteen tracks, and the album also features singer Humphrey Berney. The US/Australia/NZ edition followed in March under the name Celtic Treasure. Westenra has dedicated the album to her grandmother Shirley Ireland. Inside the sleeve of the UK edition, she wrote “I come from a musical family, and one with a real sense of history. My forefathers were on the maiden voyage from Ireland to Christchurch, New Zealand in 1850 - there’s even a plaque in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, which bears the name Westenra to commemorate this. My grandmother used to sit me on her knee and sing songs like Danny Boy from as early as I can remember. A singer herself in her earlier years, she has always been a never-ending source of songs. It’s this legacy of music that she’s been passing down to me since my childhood, and it’s many of these beautiful old songs that I’ve explored here on my album.”

As her success increased so did her political activeness. On St. Patrick’s Day 2007, she again performed for president George Bush at the White House. Her trip there was not all pleasure as she had plans to provide the president a petition to place a mandatory carbon cap on the United States. The goal of the petition was compliance with the commitment made by president Clinton in previous years to follow the Kyoto Protocol. This never came to pass as the president was rushed off after her concert due to a terrorist threat.

Continuing the buildup of her musical career, she starred as Maria in the 2007 recording of West Side Story. The album of the 2007 West Side Story recording will be released on 30 July. On 28 July, she will star in Woburn LIVE 2007, where she will preform a selection of the music of West Side Story with the other recording artists of the 2007 release.

Westenra is known as a vegetarian/pescotarian, and is currently nominated for PETA’s ‘Sexiest Vegetarian’ for 2007. However the New Zealand Herald has reported that she was unable to carry on her modus vivendi because of her concern with getting the appropriate amounts of nutrients. While she is on the road she is sometimes unable to obtain the vegetarian sources she prefers so she decided to eat meat to fulfill her nutritional requirements. Westenra told the New Zealand Herald, “I’m completely bursting the bubble now, aren’t I? That’s that ruined. Ha.”

Philanthropy and charity

Westenra is the youngest UNICEF Ambassador to date. In 2005, Westenra visited Ghana to publicize her latest project and actively help funding for UNICEF; this involved raising money to purchase bicycles for young girls, allowing them to get to their schools from outlying surrounding areas. When she was later interviewed about her charity work in Ghana she had this to say, “I met girls who had been given bikes and I could see how much it meant to them. We wanted to borrow one just for a photo and they wouldn’t let them go they were really reluctant”.On 8 June 2007, Westenra will be performing in a fundraising concert for her UNICEF charity, Bikes for Ghana, at the Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent.

She has also been the ambassador for Save the Children in Hong Kong. More recently, she took part in a breast cancer awareness campaign in New Zealand. One of the other charities which she helps is the Women’s Environmental Network. Another major charity which she helps is the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy. All of the children who receive her help at this Center for Music Therapy are disabled.