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BIOGRAPHY

Hayley Westenra
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP | BLOG

Hayley Dee Westenra, born on April 10, 1987, in Christchurch, is a New Zealand soprano of Irish heritage.

Her first album, Pure, reached #1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 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 recorded the fastest-selling debut classical album 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 toured with them on their 2007 Spring Tour.

Westenra 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.

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 pursuit towards a musical career began at the age of six, when Westenra 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 was pitch perfect. The teacher encouraged Westenra to learn how to play 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 originally created 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 Canterbury Television, and asked Westenra to appear on air.

A concert promotion company, under the direction of Gray Bartlett, watched the show and became interested in dealing with her. Shortly after this, she had been offered a recording deal before she even meet with Universal New Zealand. 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.

In August 2006, Westenra 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 toured with the group in the United States in 2007, with scheduled appearances in 88 venues across the country; this tour ended in June of the same year.

Westenra's third international album, Treasure, was released on 26 February 2007 in the UK. All 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, Westenra 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, Westenra 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."