Biography

The infant school teacher who picked six-year-old Hayley Westenra out of her class to take the lead singing part of Little Star in the school Christmas play certainly knew what she was doing.

Within ten years of that first star-spot the Christchurch-born prodigy would be one of the world’s most exciting singing sensations, with a crate full of platinum discs; and singing duets with the greats, heroes like Andrea Bocelli, Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel and to audiences including everyone from the Queen (three times in one week!), Tony Blair and George Bush to fans at the Sydney Opera House, Wembley Stadium, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. It’s a pretty crammed CV considering Hayley’s still only 18 years of age. Now, with her new album “Odyssey” released, Hayley is on one of the hottest global tours of the year, as a special guest alongside fellow Opera Superstars Il Divo –“Well I’m three shows in and I’m having a blast!” she laughs “the Il Divo guys are so welcoming; very friendly indeed and they have excellent voices – I’m sure there are going to be a few jealous women out there! What they probably forget though is that my back-up band, the crew, everyone is all male – I’m actually holding out here for some female company!”

Born the eldest daughter of a gemologist, an expert in precious stones, with a mother who has turned her hand to everything up to and including photographic duties for her daughter, Hayley followed up her infant school performance with parts in major productions of musicals like Annie and The Sound of Music. But it was as a child busker that things really started to take off for Hayley.

Like most girls her age, Hayley was into her after-school clubs, her ballet, and her sports. She bought records by the Spice Girls – even though she preferred Andrea Bocelli – and entered the odd talent show (usually winning). Her first busking experience was when she and a group of mates found they didn’t have enough lunch money and decided they’d earn it singing for local shoppers (they ate very well that day!)The experience was an eye-opener for Hayley, who, while still only 11, started staking a pitch and regaling anyone who would listen not only with her voice but her violin. “I soon noticed I would get quite a crowd when I was singing but when I started to play the violin, they drifted off,” she laughs now.

And the crowds that would surround the busking pre-teen were her first fan base, asking her for CDs she hadn’t even got round to recording yet. No problem. With the help of her mum, Hayley had some CDs run off and would deliver them personally to the tourists who had seen her perform at their hotels. But demand outstripped their almost unit-by-unit production and soon an impressed friend of her parents stumped up a massive $5,000 for Hayley and her mum, whose photographs were on those almost home-made CDs, to get a proper batch burned.

With boxes of the CDs to hand, Hayley and her mum decided they might as well send some to record companies and were soon asked by Universal Records in New Zealand to come in for meetings. The CD, with its mix of classical, folk and traditional Maori songs, was so impressive Universal decided there wasn’t much they wanted to change apart from the production values. The result was Hayley’s first album, which went triple platinum immediately turning her into New Zealand’s fasting-selling artist.

After a Christmas album (platinum, of course), it was decided that Hayley needed a world stage and so, having signed with Decca in London, she recorded Pure. The record company were confident they had something pretty special on their hands, but even they cannot have expected the reaction to Pure when it was released when Hayley was still just 15.

Selling faster than any other classical debut in history – faster than Charlotte Church or Andrea Bocelli or Russell Watson – Pure was a sensation: twelve times platinum in her native New Zealand, where it is the biggest selling record of all time having spent 18 weeks at number one in the pop album charts, the success was replicated in the UK, where it went triple platinum, Australia, where it went platinum and in Japan, where it is the best-selling classical record in the country’s history.

Hayley remained unfazed, in that way teenagers have, even though the success meant she had to leave school, resettle in London and start touring the world, adding her voice to major movies like Al Pacino’s “Merchant of Venice” and Terrence Malick’s ‘The New World’ and performing in legendary venues to the most famous people on the planet, followed everywhere by “star is born”-type headlines. And she still had to study for her GCSEs in her downtime!

Now at 18, Hayley’s found herself growing as a person and moving on. “I’m enjoying my new independence” she concurs, “fortunately enough I’m quite an independent person and I don’t mind my own company. It would be nice to spend more time with family and friends, my time with them is never long enough”.  There is always time for a bit of retail therapy though. “I do love shopping, but I’m also quite frugal which kind of puts a stop to it most of the time “she laughs, “however, my one weakness is jeans – I love Diesel jeans! I’m a real jeans, t-shirt and boots kinda girl.”

Her real passion however, remains the same – music. A fan of artists right across the board from John Legend to Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo to Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell. Celebrating the Il Divo tour, Hayley has recorded three new songs to be released on a Special Edition of ‘Odyssey’ – “I’ve recorded ‘The Water Is Wide’, ‘Scarborough Fair’ and ‘Lascia Ch’io Pianga’. They are all songs I wish I’d recorded earlier! ‘Scarborough Fair’ is so haunting; I feel I’ve put my stamp on ‘The Water Is Wide’, and I got to play piano on it. I love ‘Lascia Ch’io Pianga,’ it’s such a beautifully sad, yet regal song.”

With a new album – Odyssey –  as well as the major world stadium tour with Il Divo (and some mountain climbing on the side), you’d think she’d leave it at that. Not Hayley. She’s now the youngest ever Ambassador for UNICEF and has been on a fact-finding mission to Ghana, a trip that changed her life.” Meeting young people that are the same as me but with such a different world of opportunity has a profound affect on you.  I aspire to be a singer, which seems so unessential compared with their simple desire for a cup of clean water.  You can’t go somewhere like that, meet those people and come back unchanged.” she says. Since the trip, Hayley has set up Hayley’s Bikes for Ghana, a project providing bicycles for children in Ghana so they can attend school and find a better future (for more details: www.unicef.org.nz). It’s become a fixation. And we’ve seen how fixations tend to take hold of the young Hayley.

You wonder if she ever regrets all this. All the fame, the success, the travelling round the world. Wouldn’t she like to stay still for a while, maybe get a boyfriend, hang out a little? “You don’t walk away from opportunities like these,” she laughs, looking at you as if you’re mad. “This is what people dream of.” Having circled the globe many times, Hayley’s fallen for the charms of the UK, setting up her temporary base here. “I love being an honorary Brit if I can call myself that” she smiles, “I consider London to be my second home – it’s an exciting, fantastic multi-cultural city”.