Hayley Westenra

by Hayley Westenra

  I was on the television programme Sixty Minutes on the Sunday night before the album was released. It's a big documentary-style programme, which covers three topics, spending around twenty minutes on each one. I was interviewed for the show and I can still remember the horror I felt when the producers told me that they wanted to have a shot of me at my piano in my bedroom. The whole camera crew squashed themselves into my little room. As I waited for them to set up the lights, I looked around the green wallpaper on the walls, covered with random pieces of artwork that I had painted myself. Jars filled with coloured stones, my collection of shells and various hand-painted pottery creations jostled for space on the shelves. It was just like any other teenage girl's bedroom, except that today, plonked right in the middle of it, were a camera crew with their bright lights and big sound boom.

  I had not realised just how influential a programme Sixty Minutes is in New Zealand. They have continued to be incredibly supportive of me ever since. The morning after that first interview aired, there were apparently people queuing up outside the record shops in Christchurch, waiting to buy my CD. It was truly amazing. Suddenly, my album was selling faster than even my most optimistic supporter would have predicted. They were flying off the shelves and, in no time at all, the album had gone triple platinum in New Zealand.

  A lot of the people who bought that first record were mothers and grandmothers, but these days I'm connecting with more people my own age as well. My albums always sell particularly strongly in the week before Mother's Day. As well as the older fans, I also seem to appeal to young girls who are themselves aspiring to be singers. These days, when I'm performing in New Zealand, I often look out into the audience and see three generations of families coming along to my concerts, which gives me a real buzz. To be honest, I don't mind at all who buys my records. I simply want to make music that connects with real people, no matter who they are or where they come from.

  When people say to me that I'm the biggest name in New Zealand's recording history, I find it quite an incredible concept, in the truest sense of the word. I'm still very much focused on the simple things in life and in getting the basics of what I do absolutely right. Despite the fact that I now perform in front of thousands of people, I still want to give a performance that is just as authentic as those that I used to give in front of far smaller crowds. I still enjoy the same things and have the same group of friends I had before I had a number-one record. I love going to the movies and chatting to my family on the phone. I don't feel that I've changed that much. I'm still working on bettering my voice, finding great songs, and even writing songs for myself. These are the same things I've always spent my time doing. It's not as if my life had been tipped upside down. I feel as if I'm very much on the same path – just a bit further along it.

  When Hayley Westenra went to number one, I took it completely in my stride. It didn't mean as much to me as it probably should have done. I guess the biggest change was at school, where other kids would notice me, saying, 'Hey! It's that singer. Oi, sing us a song!' Or they'd just whisper, 'Look, it's Hayley Westenra' as I went from one class to the next. I was very fortunate in that there was certainly no bullying at school, just joking around. In fact, the only time when I was bullied was far, far earlier, when I was around eight years old and I was hassled by a group of girls after I sang the Denice Williams song 'Let's Hear It for the Boy'. These girls used to tease me by saying, 'Who's your boy, then, Hayley?' I was only eight years old and unfortunately I didn't have any clever quips to fire back at them, so took the teasing to heart. It didn't last for long, though, and it would have better enabled me to handle any bullying as a teenager but thankfully none of any substance came my way.

  Occasionally, the kids at school who didn't know me that well would try to wind me up, but it never bothered me in the slightest. My friends and I actually found it quite amusing and, in truth, I probably enjoyed the attention. When you've been on television, people start to notice you and it felt like a measurement of success. It seemed as though I was obviously getting somewhere because people were engaging with me. That said, I did realise that it was possible to be famous and not successful and understood the importance of having a record that was high in the charts.

  I carried on with my classes, but, increasingly, I found myself spending more and more time promoting the album. I performed in a national tour across New Zealand, taking in places such as Wellington, Hamilton, Christchurch and even Timaru. It was very special to go back there for the first time as a professional singer. It was my grandparents' home town and never mind the fact that I might have sold more tickets in a bigger city. I just wanted to perform in Timaru because Nanna and Grandad were there.

  One of the things that I've learned about the record industry is that, when things are going well, record companies always want more – and quickly. So I was asked to make a Christmas album, My Gift to You, a title that I have to confess I've always thought of as being rather cheesy.

  The littlest star: my performing debut, aged six

  Captivating the audience with my new microphone

  loved my tutu, but ballet soon took second place to the singing

  Caroline Bay Carnival, January 1999

  I have inherited my musicality from both my Nanna and Grandad

  Busking for our lunch: Sophie, Isaac and me in the Arts Centre area of Christchurch

  The Pure tour, with Isaac, Sophie, Brandon Poe and Hinewehi Mohi

  Cadogan Hall

  Holding the American Society of Young Musicians Young Performer of the Year trophy

  Collecting another award at the New Zealand Music Awards

  Recording at Air Studios with Sir George Martin

  The photo that my mum took for the cover of my very first album

  Kathryn and me having a delirious moment due to serious jet lag in Japan!

  Filming a PBS special for American television with my sister Sophie

  At the Classical Brit Awards, 2006

  The Westenra family together for the launch of my album Odyssey

  When you are a teenager, you are so conscious of not being 'cheesy', but, as I couldn't come up with anything better (bearing in mind the school year was coming to an end and my head was also trying to deal with maths sums and science equations), I let the title be. My Gift to You it was.

  I recorded the album in less than a week. For the first time, I was allowed to have some say in the tracks that I recorded and I said no to 'Once in Royal David's City' and no to 'Away in a Manger'. What a thrill! The tracks were being decided upon while we were on the tour. One of the musicians supporting me, a violinist called Ben Morrison, was a friend from my class at school. When we were in Auckland, we had half an hour to spare after we had checked out of the hotel and were waiting for our ride, so Ben and I raced down to a local music store and flicked through the CDs there. Looking for inspiration on tracks that I could record for the Christmas album, I came across a Kathleen Battle CD of spirituals and, recognising the name, wondered if there would be something interesting on it. I asked the shopkeeper if I could have a listen to the disc. I skimmed through the tracks, stopping at one that grabbed me from the first few notes. It was called 'Mary Did You Know?' I loved the song the instant I heard it and I knew that I just had to sing it. I had never really felt that way about a song before. Previously, it had been a more matter-of-fact process, where I would agree that a song suited my voice and then we would record it.

  For the first time, I had formed a real connection with a song and I was very excited about my discovery. I ran down Queen Street back to the hotel, album in hand, very eager to share my news. When the time came to make the final decisions about the Christmas CD, I knew that I wanted to include it more than any other track. It was my first editorial decision and it gave me a big boost in confidence when it became one of the big songs from the album.

  Gaining confidence when you are working with recording-industry professionals is a very gradual process. With every
album, I'm getting a little bit more confident. Other tracks on that album included 'You'll Never Walk Alone', which became one of my big live concert tracks, and 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire', which I enjoyed because it was slightly more like a pop song in its style – laid back, while retaining its original warmth and cosiness.

  My Gift to You was the first album on which I sang new material that had been written especially for me, and that made me extremely proud of the opening track, 'All I Have to Give'. There were some old favourites, too: 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', which I perfected as a singing telegram, and what has ended up becoming my signature song, 'Pokarekare Ana'. I was also really excited that the big bosses had let my sister Sophie, who was eleven at the time, sing backing vocals on two of the tracks, 'Do You Hear What I Hear?' and 'Through These Eyes'. We are so close that it was nice to be able to have her on the album. However, I was also quite nervous for her as well. During the recording, I enjoyed taking on the role of overprotective big sister, giving her encouragement and what little advice I had.

  The process of making the album was slightly unusual. We were so tight for time that two producers were employed: David Selfe, who had made my first Universal album, and Jim Hall. Each was given half of the album to work on. Once I had finished working on all the tracks that Jim had pre-prepared, we still had one song to find. He picked up some songbooks in the studio and started to flick through them trying to find some inspiration. I watched over his shoulder.

  'Oh, I know that one – "Morning Has Broken",' I said, just as he was about to turn the page past it.

  So he picked up his guitar and I sang along as he strummed the accompaniment. We went straight into the studio and recorded it moments later. It was as quick as that – on the spot. It meant that my second Universal Music album was complete.

  I was starting to get the hang of working in recording studios. I've never been one of those artists who have superstitions or rituals around going into the studio, but I do like to have some healthy snack food to munch on between takes to keep my energy levels up. I always take a little container of chopped vegetables and fruit – strawberries, carrot sticks, celery sticks, that sort of thing. I never eat dairy-based foods before singing because – and here I must apologise for the graphic detail – dairy tends to make you overproduce phlegm, which clogs your throat. There's a risk of your singing with a frog in your throat, which wouldn't be pleasant for either the singer or those people listening to the album.

  These are the sorts of tips that I learned from Dame Malvina Major, who is one of New Zealand's greatest operatic stars. She gave me some lessons and I trusted her opinions completely. Dame Malvina passed on a lot of advice to me in terms of singing technique, which has remained with me ever since. It was a real privilege to be able to spend time with her because, up until that point, I had had lessons with various teachers, but I had never really felt confident in my singing technique. I was very much relying on my natural voice. Even now, I still believe that I've a lot more work to do on my voice and I'm looking forward to a quiet period in my schedule, when I can focus on my singing technique.

  I immediately respected Dame Malvina. I was also a little bit scared of her at first because I had this record contract and I was selling albums. I wrongly assumed that she would be thinking to herself, Who is this girl? She's out making records, when she hasn't even done her studying yet.

  But I needn't have worried. She was encouraging and supportive in every possible way. She gave me one particularly important piece of advice: 'Stay true to yourself.' She never pushed me down the classical route into opera and, at the same time, she didn't look down her nose at my classical-crossover record contract, either.

  At one point, a friend of hers heard me sing and said, 'Rip up your record contract! Go and do your study! You have potential to be a great opera singer, but you'll never make it if you stick with your record contract.' He certainly was not a very open-minded man. Much to my annoyance, he nearly made me cry, because, yes, I'm quite a sensitive soul! I felt better when Dame Malvina called us up later that evening and told me to ignore what he had said and to keep on going.

  CHAPTER 6

  ON RECORD

  The success of my first Universal album had excited everyone at the record company in New Zealand. George Ash moved to Australia to run Universal Music there but he worked with his successor, Adam Holt, to interest the international side of Universal in working with me.

  Record companies can be complicated places with lots of different labels and companies operating under one umbrella organisation. Sometimes they compete and sometimes they work together. Sometimes they appear to work together but turn out to have been competing all along. Although Universal Music New Zealand is a massive company on its own turf, it's relatively small when it comes to the rest of the world. To have taken an album by one of its artists and marketed it to all of the other Universal Music record companies in each of the territories around the world would have been too great a risk for Universal Music New Zealand to have taken.

  The international dimension came along in the shape of Costa Pilavachi, who, at the time, was president of Decca Music Group. He was also part of the umbrella Universal Music company, and his role was to develop artists who would make records that would sell in different territories around the world. Decca is one of the best loved and most respected classical-music labels, and has been home to many of the genre's greatest stars, such as the conductor Sir Georg Solti, who enjoyed a lifetime contract with them.

  A copy of my debut self-titled album found its way to the Decca Music Group's headquarters in London. I believe it's Jean-Hughes Allard, working in the A&R (Artists and Repertoire) division, that I have to thank sincerely for this next development in my career. I'm told he was playing my disc in his office rather loudly, and it caught the attention of Costa Pilavachi, who was working in his office just down the corridor. He liked what he heard and immediately got in touch with Universal Music New Zealand. Although George Ash and Adam Holt were absolutely behind the idea of my working with Decca to move on to the international stage, the people at Decca still had to be convinced that I was a good investment and, rather than send an underling all the way from their headquarters in London, Costa himself flew thousands of miles down to New Zealand.

  I was performing in a concert in Wellington and it was arranged that Costa would watch me sing before coming to see us at home in Christchurch afterwards. I met him briefly at the hotel. He seemed a very charming and stylish man, the sort of person whose authority you instantly recognise. He was just that sort of guy and I was in awe of him because I knew that he was a big shot from the UK.

  When he flew down to Christchurch, it was a huge deal in the Westenra household. Mum put Dad in charge of organising a restaurant where we could take him out to dinner. He booked a place on the Strip in Christchurch, an area filled with lots of cafes, bars and restaurant. When Costa was picked up at the airport, we noticed that he had taken one of Christchurch's posh cabs.

  Suddenly, Mum started to panic that the restaurant that we had booked was not posh enough. So, at the last minute, we changed the booking to an Italian place called Palazzo, which is one of Christchurch's smartest eateries and is well known for its extensive wine list. It was a stroke of genius and we all got on exceptionally well there. It turned into a very successful evening, which was a real relief for all of us.

  Costa is a very cultured man and he charmed the restaurant owner when he came over to chat. The waitresses were very knowledgeable about the food and wine and Costa, who appeared to be a man who liked the finer things in life, really appreciated this. Throughout the meal, Mum, Dad and I gave each other little glances of approval. We were very pleased with ourselves that we had chosen the right restaurant.

  Costa was very jovial and showed a lot of interest in the whole family, and he went out of his way to include Sophie and Isaac in the conversation. I could sense that Mum and Dad were warming to him as well, because he
was interested in what my brother and sister had to say, as opposed to directing all his attention on me. Mum was very proud when he commented on the fact that we all looked like healthy children. It was something that she reminded everyone of regularly for some time afterwards!.

  Costa also came to visit us at home and this was the cue for even more nervousness from the Westenras. I have to admit that I was really embarrassed about his coming to see our house because I assumed that he had been to the absolute top places around the world. Here was this international record-company big shot coming to little old Hayley's home, a regular house in Christchurch, with clutter all around the place – even though as many of the offending items as possible had been put away out of sight before his arrival.

  Looking back on it, I realise I probably shouldn't have felt like that. I'm much more comfortable with who I am and where I've come from these days. And it didn't seem to make a difference to Costa what sort of house we lived in. He made everybody feel very much at home, which was odd because we actually were at home and he was the visitor.

  Now that I've travelled around the world, I've seen the sorts of houses in which people live in other countries and I've come to realise how lucky we are in New Zealand. In fact, our home in Christchurch is in a beautiful location, with a large backyard in a grassy area surrounded by trees. It may not be a mansion in New Zealand terms, but it's huge compared with the space that most people have in a city such as London and it's absolutely massive compared with the space in which people live in somewhere far more densely populated, such as Hong Kong.