Hayley Westenra

by Hayley Westenra

  At times, I did miss gossiping with my friends about clothes, or bands, or boys. I suppose it has made me quite an independent person and I enjoy having my own space. I love walking around London, just taking it all in and people-watching. I find doing chores such as going to the supermarket can give me a breather from music and performing, giving me time to think instead.

  Giles Martin has a fantastic sense of humour and working in a studio with him was a very relaxed process with many laughs along the way. In fact, sometimes the laughing got in the way of recording, with many false starts, thanks to Giles's legendary throwaway joking comments, which resulted in my being unable to contain my giggles just before I was meant to be doing a vocal take.

  Eastcote Studios, where we made half the album, were the opposite of flashy, although they did have a real aura of rock'n'roll about them, which I found appealing. Air Studios, on the other hand, were very smart indeed. On the first day I walked in, I looked up at the whiteboard on the wall. My name was next to the sign for Studio 2. My eyes drifted along to the other names beside mine and I was shocked to discover that Cecilia Bartoli was in Studio 1 and George Michael was in Studio 3. They were locked away working and I didn't see either of them all day.

  I've been back to Air Studios many times since and I often bump into all sorts of major recording stars. Just a few days before writing this, I saw Chris Martin from Coldplay eating his lunch in the cafeteria. Despite its being the sort of place where lots of different stars hang out, they keep themselves to themselves and wander around with their people in their own little worlds. Everyone is quite cool and, although people acknowledge each other, they don't tend to hang around and chat. I wonder sometimes if it would be different if all the artists were Kiwis. We are far less reserved as a nation than people tend to be in England.

  I first met Giles's father, Sir George Martin, in the cafe at Air Studios. Hanging out over lunch with him was so cool – and there are not that many people who are in their eighties whom you can say that about. When it was first mentioned to me that he would be working with me on a couple of tracks on the album, I realised quickly just how big a thing it was by gauging the reaction of people of my parents' generation.

  He wrote 'Beat of Your Heart' and arranged 'Amazing Grace' for me. By that stage, I was well aware of his status, experience and background. He was a real gentleman: very kind with his comments and generous with his time. He worked especially well with Giles. It was like having a comedy duo sitting behind the glass in the studio control room, each trying to give the other a hard time in a very good-natured way. They make an excellent team.

  Sarah Class was another very important member of the Pure team. She added a real feminine touch to the album with her orchestral arrangements. She's very clever at making songs sound slightly lighter than a man would have done. To my mind, the song that she wrote for the album, 'Across the Universe of Time', is almost fairylike, with sparkling, glittery touches that add a magical quality to the music.

  One of the highlights of making Pure was when it came to recording 'In Trutina' from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. It was the only song that I actually recorded with the orchestra, rather than laying down my vocals after the instrumentation had been committed to tape. Each method of recording has its pros and cons, but there's something very special about standing next to an orchestra and singing with them. I find that I tend to sync my voice into the orchestral sound and the resulting track can sound more 'together'. If there are eighty or so players sitting next to you, then you realise that there will not be the opportunity to record take after take after take, so the track is often a little bit more live-sounding. Occasionally, slight idiosyncrasies in a live recording can really make a track special. That said, if you are doing a difficult piece, then it does take the pressure off if you can record separately from the orchestra. You don't have to worry about getting it right in one take to avoid paying the orchestra overtime!

  I was also very excited to be singing the 'Benedictus' from The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by the leading Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. He is one of the most popular and accessible contemporary classical composers around. It's a huge number and requires a big chorus. We recorded it in Studio 1 at Air Studios, which couldn't have been more appropriate, as the whole building is a converted church, complete with stained-glass windows. There are great acoustics in Studio 1 because it has such a large area and the 'Benedictus' really filled the whole room with sound. It was the perfect setting for the piece and the atmosphere helped me a lot. It's one of the few pieces from my albums that I've never performed live and it's still something that I would love to do.

  One morning, I arrived at the studios to find Giles waiting excitedly for me. He had managed to locate a Maori cultural group in London to sing on a couple of the tracks. I was a little taken aback to discover that this group existed only a few miles down the road from where I had been living, so many miles from home in New Zealand. I was very keen to have a Maori element to Pure, but I was not sure that we would manage to pull it off. When they came into the studio, they brought lots of New Zealand food with them to share and it became quite a party.

  We also had a British choir with them in the studio at the same time. The members of the Maori cultural group were very nervous about performing in front of the choir because, although they performed professionally, they were unused to performing in the classical-music style. It was quite funny because the members of the British choir turned out to be completely in awe of the Maori cultural group and spent the whole time they were there working up the courage to ask them to perform the haka.

  As soon as the Brits finally asked, the Maori choir did the business and it was a huge hit, really breaking down any barriers that had existed between the two groups. For me, it was so exciting to have such an authentic Kiwi atmosphere in a studio in Hampstead, North London. When the two choirs sing together on 'Pokarekare Ana', they create a magnificent sound – one of the real peaks of the whole album. Audiences outside New Zealand constantly ask me what the words to 'Pokarekare Ana' actually mean. So here is the translation.

  Stormy are the waters

  Of restless Waiapu;

  If you cross them, girl,

  They will be calmed.

  Oh, girl,

  Come back to me;

  I could die

  Of love for you.

  I write you my letter;

  I send you my ring,

  So your people can see

  How troubled I am.

  Oh, girl,

  Come back to me;

  I could die

  Of love for you.

  It's the story of two lovers who are separated and is a very tragic song, although you would have been hard-pressed to realise through the buzz of excitement as we recorded it for Pure. It was so special to be creating this seminal New Zealand track over in London and to have a studio full of Kiwis there for support.

  During the time when I was working on Pure, I was starting to sing in a series of live concerts around the UK with Russell Watson, who is also signed to Decca. I had already sung with him once in New Zealand in a special outdoor concert for the American television channel PBS. I opened the show for him and then we performed a duet on 'Pokarekare Ana'. It went down well with the crowd, so he invited me to join him on his tour of the UK.

  This was a time when I was completely unknown, so it was a big opportunity for me. As I travelled around the UK, I began to get some sort of sense of the country as a whole, rather than just London. Russell was riding the crest of a huge number of record sales and was performing sell-out concerts in the big arenas usually reserved for pop acts, so it was a real baptism of fire for me.

  The record company bought me my stage outfit: a little denim miniskirt and a sparkly top from Top Shop. It was all very girly, but it was the right look for me at that stage, although I wouldn't be seen dead wearing that sort of thing on stage now. 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was one of the songs that I performed as par
t of my set. It always went down well, although, just before I walked on stage in Newcastle, I had a quick lesson in English football teams and their songs from Perry Hughes, Russell's manager at the time.

  'You do realise that this song is Liverpool's and you're in Newcastle – a rival?' he asked me, with a big grin on his face.

  'Good to know,' I gulped, as I walked on stage. I apologised for what I was about to sing and got a huge round of applause from the very friendly (and forgiving) Newcastle crowd.

  Russell's tour was the one and only occasion when Mum has appeared on stage with me at one of my professional engagements. Russell decided that he wanted to sing 'Mustang Sally' and they needed to draft in some emergency backing singers. So Mum was volunteered alongside the hair and makeup artist. It was her moment of stardom and she loved it.

  I'm only glad that Dad was not there, or else he, too, might have been enrolled. Love him as I do, he really can't sing or dance. Sophie, Isaac and I are still haunted by the sight of him dressed up as Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer at the Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park concert back in Christchurch one year when we were small. We thought that Dad would make an excellent Rudolph, but it turned out that his dancing was not quite up to scratch; and, I'm afraid to say (sorry, Dad!), his singing is not much better, either. But that is the worst thing that I can say about him – other than his singing and dancing, he's the best Dad anyone could ever have.

  In June 2002, I made my debut at Carnegie Hall in New York at a concert that Russell was performing there. Once again, I performed 'Pokarekare Ana' as a duet with him, but there were technical problems halfway through my solo song. I could suddenly hear the high-pitched whistling sound of feedback. The level of the sound was starting to get bigger and bigger and I knew that at any moment it could blow into an ear-splitting screech. It's really not something that any artist would want to happen to them during their Carnegie Hall debut.

  I just battled on. In a setting that prestigious, it's simply not a problem that I had expected. After all, this was not a little village hall somewhere in the country, but rather America's foremost classical-music venue. As I stood on stage, I could feel a sense of frustration welling up inside me. So much emphasis had been placed on this concert, as all the big shots from the American arm of Decca were there. A great deal of time and care had been taken over my hair, makeup and wardrobe. It was a huge deal and everything went smoothly apart from the sound – something that you would have thought they would have double- and triple-checked. People were very complimentary about my willingness to keep on going on the stage, but for me it spoiled what should have been a very special night.

  A crew from the television programme Sixty Minutes followed my first trip to America. While we were there, they filmed me and the rest of the family taking a horse-and-cart ride around Central Park. The driver asked me why I was being filmed. I explained that I was a singer from New Zealand.

  'I had Charlotte Church in my cart a few years ago,' he said. Now, Charlotte is somebody whom, although I've met her only the once, I feel I know extraordinarily well because her name came up in every single interview I gave in the first few years of my career and still comes up in every other interview I give now.

  In the old days the question I was always asked was, 'Charlotte Church – do you mind the comparison?' For the record, my answer was always, 'No, it's fine. I can understand why the comparison's drawn.'

  Now, the question is, 'A contemporary of yours, Charlotte Church, has gone down the pop route. Are you going to follow?' And, again, for the record, my answer is always, 'No, I'm very happy with the style of music I'm singing. I want to stay true to who I believe I am as an artist, so I'll continue working in the classical-crossover area.'

  My one meeting with Charlotte was in a hotel bar, where she was sitting with her singing teacher. It was after I had appeared in Cardiff in concert with Russell Watson. After I had been on stage, Russell's manager Perry told me that Charlotte Church was in the audience. By this time, she seemed like the most famous person in the world to me, as her name was trotted out by every journalist I ever talked to, the world over.

  We finally met at the St David's Hotel later that evening. I was sitting with Mum and a few of the musicians and I breathed in sharply when I saw her in the doorway. I nudged Mum and whispered, 'Charlotte Church's just come in.' I was suddenly very nervous of meeting this girl, who was only a year older than I was. Afterwards, I turned to Mum and said, 'How cool, getting to meet her!'

  We were introduced and I talked to her very briefly, but she was constantly sending text messages on her mobile phone. Apparently, her boyfriend was waiting for her in the car outside, so she didn't really want to be doing the whole meet-'n'-greet thing. She was wearing a cute cap and she looked very starry as she walked into the bar. Everyone turned to look at her and I felt like a country bumpkin in comparison. It didn't worry me and it was not a big deal, although I did silently wish that I could look that stylish.

  'Oh, yes, great concert. You're doing very well. Congratulations,' she said.

  'It's lovely to be meeting you,' I replied. 'Congratulations on your success too.'

  Our conversation was very polite – not tense at all, but just polite. Looking back, I guess it should have been more tense than it was because we were very much seen as competitors in the same market at the time. Now, we are a million miles apart in what we do.

  Another big star whom I nearly met was Victoria Beckham, but she makes it into this book only because I said 'no' to her. Sorry, Victoria. Her parents came to the concert that Russell and I gave at Wembley Stadium. While I was performing, her parents held up their mobile phone so that she could hear how I sounded. I was then invited to sing at one of the Beckhams' exclusive showbiz parties. To the shock of many of my friends, I turned them down.

  To be honest with you, I would love to have gone along, but I was committed to performing in a series of concerts back in New Zealand, and in one of them my sister Sophie was due to perform with me. She was all psyched up for it and was really looking forward to the experience. I couldn't possibly let her down. I was also worried about cancelling the show and disappointing my fans. It obviously was not an easy decision to make, but I do believe that once an artist has made a commitment to do something, and their fans have paid out their cash for tickets and are eagerly awaiting the show date, the artist should do everything possible to honour the commitment to their fans. And that means sometimes having to say no to other fantastic invitations that come along on the way. No performer should ever take their fans for granted.

  By now, I was living a fairly nomadic existence, flying back and forth to New Zealand. We moved into a flat in the bustling Covent Garden area of London, which became our European base. I had been quite homesick for New Zealand on my first trip and, although I do still miss my friends and family when I'm away for a long period, I'm more used to it these days. Throughout the period that I was making Pure, I was attempting to carry on with my schooling at Burnside High School, although my absences were not looking too good on the attendance register.

  When I was there, I did well, particularly in maths and science, and I was reasonably good at English. If I'm being honest, I would have to say that by this stage, with so much happening to me in terms of my music career, my heart was not really in school. As I neared the end of my high school years, I felt that even if my marks were a little on the low side, it wouldn't matter, since I didn't need bits of paper to make it as a singer. Mum and Dad took a slightly more pragmatic view and were keen for me to keep up with my schoolwork. They, along with my lawyer, did some negotiating with the record company and organised a tutor for me while I was in London, although this still was not ideal, since he didn't travel with me, so I could have lessons only on my days off from recording. I suppose that my school-work did come second to my music. Put it this way: I don't ever remember doing homework sitting at the back of a recording studio. I probably should have been keeping up with schoolwork o
n a daily basis, but, instead, everything had to be squeezed into the occasional day off.

  I ended up taking the British GCSE exams a year later because, the year that I was due to take the New Zealand School Certificate, a new system had been introduced, which made it very difficult for teachers to give me work that they had prepared in advance. There was also a good deal of internal assessment, with the aim of taking pressure off the students by assessing coursework through the year and making the final exam only part of the overall mark. The problem for me was that, because I was constantly travelling, I missed each of these assessment dates. That meant that my potential grades at the end of the year were gradually being eroded away. I did manage to sit the end-of-year exams and my grades were good, but I could have done so much better had I been there throughout the year – hence the need for me to do GCSEs when I was in the UK.

  I've not carried on with any formal further education after that, but I honestly don't feel that I've missed out. Nobody ever asks me about exams or grades these days, although there seems to be a general assumption that I finished my high school years up to NCEA Level 3 in New Zealand, or A-levels in the UK.

  Sure, there are times when I wish that I had continued my German and French. They would have actually been useful for me as I travel around, but I think my time is much better spent on my singing career. It's not too late either. I've just bought myself an Italian language course, which I'm studying at home. There's always time to keep on learning. I'm a firm believer that, for people with enquiring minds, learning never stops – and it does not have to be formal, either. I'm planning to keep on working on my Italian, because it will be useful for my singing, particularly since many of my favourite arias come from Italian operas. At the moment, I work on the basis of reading a translation of a song and then knowing how the words sound, rather than being able to translate it directly myself. I've picked up a little of the language through singing it, but, if I went to Italy, I would be completely stuck.