Many thanks for the link Robert!
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A star is BORN Amanda Cropp meets Hayley Westenra, the teenager with the golden voice.On a cold winter's evening, opera star Dame Malvina Major sits at a grand piano in a tutorial room at the University of Canterbury. Beside her stands a tall slim teenager confidently discussing Italian pronunciation and breathing techniques, occasionally pencilling notes on the music score.
She wears jeans, a black jumper pinched from her Mum and a bright pink bead choker paid for by a recent weekend busking session at the Arts Centre in Christchurch. When she sings the sound is so unbelievably pure it makes shivers run down your spine. This is Hayley Westenra, New Zealand's latest singing sensation and she's all of 14 years old.
Not so long ago Hayley sang free of charge in rest homes, delivered singing telegrams and was a regular on the talent quest circuit. A scrapbook shows her competing in a Kid Buskers competition, a slight eight-year-old in a tartan skirt and T -bar sandals. How things have changed.
In January - watched by a top Hollywood music consultant who flew in specially to see her perform - she sang in an ENZSO concert at Rotorua. The following month she appeared with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in front of 200,000 people. In May, Universal Music released a CD of her singing a mix of show music and classical pieces. It sold an unprecedented 45,000 copies in five weeks, topping the New Zealand charts for four of them. At the time of writing there were indications she would be signed by Decca Records, the world's biggest-selling classical label.
Now everyone wants a piece of Hayley and her agent fields up to 30 emails a day with invitations to sing at charity concerts, All Black tests and company launches. These days she can command a four-figure appearance fee and is spending her school holidays doing a nine-concert national tour. The girl who doesn't even have a passport will very likely head to London, Germany and the US later in the year.
It sounds like a fairy tale but what the glitzy promotional posters don't show is the hard work and sacrifice involved in launching Hayley's career. Her parents Jill and Gerald spend around $10,000 a year on extracurricular activities for Hayley and her two talented siblings, Sophie, 11, and Isaac, 8.
But the couple don't begrudge the time and effort that goes into their children. Gerald says the hours he takes off from working in his city jeweller's shop to spend with the kids costs financially, but he wouldn't have it any other way. "It is a sacrifice, but if a child has a talent it is our responsibility to nurture it." The timetable on the kitchen fridge tells the story of a frantically busy household where the three youngsters between them do about 18 lessons a week (flute, piano, violin, singing, ballet and jazz dance). Jill says she sometimes feels more like a taxi driver than a mother, but emphasises that the children have to want the music and dance lessons.
"I say to them that other families do all sorts of things that we don't, like going on overseas trips. Other families put money in the bank, we put it into their lessons. But if we said no to them we'd wonder what we had denied them."
As well as taking part in talent quests and stage shows, the children also do television commercials and modelling work. Hayley's CV shows her dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet in The Nutcracker and singing in Canterbury Opera productions and there are photos of all three children in the stage musical Rush. When an Australian production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs hit town minus a dwarf, the two sisters filled the gap, playing the role night about with no rehearsal.
At weekends the three kids love to busk for pocket money at the Arts Centre. Over the summer they made enough to buy a portable amplifier and two microphones to make sure punters can hear them. Hayley is now saving for a new $4000 violin but the first time she busked it was simply to pay for lunch after an opera rehearsal. She says street performing is very satisfying. "It's just the feeling of being quite self sufficient. You can be hungry and have nothing on you, you start singing and you have money."
Hayley was six when she appeared at her first public performance as the lead in a school production of The Littlest Star. She recalls wearing her ballet gear and a headband covered in cardboard stars. In the audience a proud Dad remembers trying to hold back the tears.
Gerald played classical music to the children when they were babies to get them to sleep but gives credit to Jill's side of the family for Hayley's musical ability.
Her father Gerald Ireland played instruments by ear and Jill says her mother Shirley had a voice very like Hayley's.
"We lived on the West Coast and wherever she went she was asked to sing. But she didn't do singing lessons or anything like that because she just didn't have the opportunity and it takes money too." Hayley didn't have formal singing lessons until she was about 11. Jill says they always knew she was good but "it was really other people telling us that she was extraordinary".
An elderly fan who had seen Hayley on the final of the McDonald's Young Entertainers series encouraged her to make a recording of her songs. About 20 copies of the CD were made to give as gifts to friends and family, however many of them ended up being sold to tourists who saw the children busking in the inner city. One woman begged Jill to let her buy the CD she had in her handbag. "We had all these other tourists asking for one so we took their names and addresses, Hayley signed the covers and we delivered them to where they were staying." Then a family friend offered to underwrite the $5000 cost of producing 1000 CDs. Jill imagined they'd sell them by busking but some music stores agreed to stock the CD and quickly sold out.
A copy was sent to Auckland agent Gray Bartlett (who now represents Hayley). He was hugely impressed and he believes Hayley is streets ahead of Welsh teen classical artist Charlotte Church because she can dance and act as well as sing. "I get hundreds of CDs over my desk and Hayley has unique qualities. There's no doubt she will turn out to be the biggest talent we have had in a long, long time." Then came the contract with Universal Music. New Zealand managing director George Ash says winning backing from international classical label Decca Records is a very big deal. "Being signed to Decca is like winning an Olympic gold medal." Dame Malvina Major, who offered Hayley weekly lessons after hearing her sing, says her voice is special. "It's absolutely musically true. A lot of young singers have beautiful voices but they have to be guided into that sort of clarity. She's got it naturally." Dame Malvina says Hayley has the option of taking a more classical path or going into the musical theatre, a decision that won't be made until she's older and her voice has matured.
Meantime she acts as a mentor and is teaching Hayley proper breathing techniques so she can avoid straining her vocal chords. "There's no big deal about it at all. I'm not going to be instrumental in anything desperately dramatic happening until she's a bit older, I'm just there for her for friendship really. They are a lovely family,like the New Zealand Osmonds in half size."
Dame Malvina may downplay her assistance but Hayley values it highly. "I'm learning heaps. She's such a lovely person. I've heard her perform many times. I've always seen her as a star and to be taught by her is pretty amazing." Amid planning for another CD, life and school must go on. Hayley, a fourth former at Burnside High, is in the school's specialist music programme. She's keen on science and languages, enjoys netball and drama and has represented the school at cross-country running. At lunch times she's scaling the climbing wall in the gym or singing in the junior chorale. Her favourite bands are Zed and U2 but given the chance to sing with anyone in the world she'd choose top Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. "I really enjoy the show songs but I enjoy classical music and opera too. I haven't decided which way I want to go in future." She gets nervous before concerts but big audiences don't faze her. "I'm conscious of all the people but I'm very focused. Everyone is usually very quiet and the first note is really hard because it has to be perfect. But once you get into the song it's fine." She was delighted to top the charts but says it feels weird seeing posters of herself plastered over shop windows and being asked to sign autographs. "It's quite strange. The other day I was walking home from school and some people yelled out from a car and said, 'We've bought your CD'. I was in my school uniform and I didn't know how they recognised me."
Gerald says it's a relief to have an agent to handle all the requests for Hayley to sing. "It's very hard for us as parents to say 'Hayley is worth this amount of money'." Jill says they've become more discerning about accepting invitations.
"We've always lived a very crazy life because we've always said yes to small requests because it meant a lot to those who asked. We used to feel obliged to say yes because it was almost like 'how mean of you if you won't come and sing at the rest home'." "A lot of people think that because Hayley's a child she will do everything and anything that comes her way and she doesn't need to be paid anything because she's not supporting a family. What they don't realise is that for Hayley to do anything there are two parents behind the scene who are not actually working while they are helping her." Gerald and Jill are mindful of the impact Hayley's success will have on family life so the two younger children are on tour too and have cameo roles in the concerts.
Gerald says Decca Records asked, "'Are the Westenras prepared for total chaos for the next three to five years?' We are used to chaos but to what level? As parents we are prepared to make sacrifices but it has to be in Hayley, Isaac and Sophie's interests."
Hayley is adamant she doesn't feel pressured to perform. "I don't feel pushed. I go to-parties and stuff like that so I don't think I'm missing out. I don't ever complain that I'm bored, I just tend to concentrate on what's coming up." Jill says they might have to consider turning down some opportunities if the upheaval was going to be too horrific for the family- "We would probably quite happily go over there (to the UK) and live for a while but we don't want to lose this house. There would have to be financial stability, we would have to know we could survive. Everyone compares Hayley with Charlotte Church but she was in a completely different situation. She was an only child and there were not another two to think about and her family already lived in the UK which makes it so much easier." Even if the future looks a little frightening at times, Jill says that's not a good enough reason to put Hayley's singing career on hold until she's older. "People who [suggest she wait till she's older] know that Hayley has this appeal because she is young, but they almost deliberately want to put you on the spot and make you feel uncomfortable.
Other people are really supportive and know it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. If we made her wait we'd feel awful because she may never get the opportunity again."
The article from Next issue August 2001 magazine in NZ.
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Richard
Funny that ,With all the nice food in the picture, it looks like he's only eating a piece bread stick with the knife and fork.
