Creme2003年8月号にHayleyの記事が掲載されました。 Hayley Westenra has the kind of voice that sends a chill down your spine. Listening to her sing Hine e Hine on her new album, Pure, fills you with patriotic pride - a beautiful New Zealand song, sung by a beautiful Kiwi girl with a stunning voice. Meet Hayley in person and you can't help but wonder where such a powerful voice comes from. With her slight frame and delicate features, she is the complete opposite of the large, formidable-looking stereotype of a classical singer.
Last time Creme spoke to Hayley she was 13 and had just released her debut self-titled album. Now, sitting in the offices of her record label in Auckland with her Louis Vuitton luggage ("It's not a real Louis Vuitton bag," she's quick to point out, laughing. "I got it in Hong Kong. If you look closely it actually has 'LW' on it instead of 'LV' but I didn't realise until I got home and someone told me. I would never pay that much money just for a bag!"), Hayley is on the verge of releasing Pure, her debut international album. She is just back from London where she spent four months with her mum, Jill, recording the 12 songs featured on the album. She will be at home in Christchurch with her family for four weeks before heading off to Australia and through Asia, then back to London in August where the album will be released in September. There are plans to go to the US next year, as well, where she has already performed at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York alongside Russell Watson, a well-known British opera singer. A busy schedule for anyone, let alone a 16-year-old but Hayley seems to take it all in her stride. Her personality is instantly engaging; sitting on the edge of her seat, she chats easily about the extraordinary life she has been living in the past few months and the famous people she has worked and performed with. At this year's Classical Brit Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Hayley became the first artist unreleased in the UK to perform at this occasion. Such is the regard they have for her on the other side of the world, that as she walked up the red carpet to enter the Royal Albert Hall she was greeted by a Maori welcome group someone had organized especially for her. Without a hint of bragging, Hayley reveals that once inside she got to meet some of her musical idols - opera singers, Andrea Bocelli and Cecilia Bartolli, among them. Sting and Marlene (ex British pop group Hear'say member), were also performing and Vanessa Mae was presenting an award: "I was like, 'Oh, and me!'" she laughs.
For all her genuine modesty, it is obvious Hayley takes her career very seriously and isn't prepared to compromise on second best. Although she has made her mark with classical music and show tunes with her previous two albums, on Pure she is branching out and exploring different musical styles. "I enjoy a mix of music. I didn't want to stick strictly to one genre; I wanted to include all the genres I enjoy," she says of choosing the tracks for the album. In the press book accompanying Pure she lists her favourite artists as Nelly Furtardo, Craig David, Shakira, The Corrs and Vanessa Carlton; and the album does, in fact, include a couple of more 'poppy' songs, as she puts it. Among the album credits are Sir George Martin (the legendary Beatles producer) who wrote Beat Of Your Heart especially for her, Elvis Costello and Jeff Beck. Hayley also has the privilege of being the first person to cover Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights - a song that is infamously difficult to sing well.
Another aspect of Hayley maintaining her integrity as an artist is ensuring that she stays healthy so she doesn't compromise her voice, something she admits to being quite disciplined about. "Your voice is part of you [as a singer]. Your health has to be top notch and you have to be well rested and eat well. I mean, I always want to eat well but you have to be extra careful." Hayley prefers to use complementary medicine when she can; even if it means eating garlic and Manuka honey sandwiches to help ease a sore throat, she will do what it takes to look after her voice. "If I was doing rock singing it would be easier," she says. "If you've got a bit of a croak in your voice that's OK but, with classical singing especially, you have to hit all the high notes and those are the parts of your voice that are likely to go if you get sick." She has found herself in a situation where her voice nearly gave out on her before a big performance. "At the end of last year I sang at the Melbourne Carols. I started with a sore throat a week out and I thought I would be fine but it turned into bronchitis. It was a complete nightmare," she says, able to laugh about it now. "I wanted to do a bit of singing to see if I could still actually sing but at the same time I didn't want to wear my voice out. I was in the position where I was thinking 'Oh my gosh, am I going to be able to sing?' I was already over in Melbourne and I felt I couldn't pull out because everyone had already done all the promotion for the event. I think it was the adrenalin that pulled me through. I managed to sing - and I thought I did pretty well- but I was completely stressed out with worry."
It's this kind of integrity and attitude that makes Hayley so likeable and obviously easy to work with. Dame Malvina Major, one of New Zealand's best-known opera singers, was so impressed with Hayley's talent that she offered to tutor her: "It's absolutely musically true," Dame Malvina has been quoted as saying of Hayley's voice. "A lot of young singers have beautiful voices but they have to be guided into that sort of clarity. She has it naturally."
With such adulation and an extraordinary natural talent, you would expect Hayley and her family to be rolling in money by now. Not so, she says: "Everyone expects us to be millionaires, but we're not. We're expected to dress well and look stunning with gorgeous dresses. The people we're mixing with dress so well and we're expected to dress like them. I'm still not making that much money. I'm in the process of recording my first international album and there are so many expenses that need to be paid off before I make anything. You do have to be wary about what you spend your money on." Although she does have a dressmaker here in New Zealand who has made her some beautiful dresses, she has grown out of them now: "I would like to be able to wear her dresses overseas and I'm sure I will eventually." Hayley admits she's not the sort of person to spend loads of money on clothes all the time, although sometimes it is necessary. In London she and her mum liked to visit the charity shops, where they found brand-new samples half the price of dresses in the regular shops. "You can't wear the same dress more than about twice because people will notice. I guess it's kind of pathetic but that's what's expected! You also have to be comfortable with what you're wearing when you're performing."
Hayley is pragmatic about her future: "I guess at the moment I don't want to think ahead too much. I just deal with each day as it comes, I don't want to set my sights too high." Ideally, she says, she would love to be a big hit around the world and be invited to perform in lots of different places. "That would be amazing but you can't really expect it. It's a bonus if it does happen." Hayley is also not tying herself down to one particular genre of music; pop can be fun, but at the moment she's enjoying working in the area where pop and classical cross over. "I would like my career to go on for as long as possible. I've worked so hard to get up to this level. I don't want to say I've had enough and just go to university - I'm loving what I'm doing."
So how does she feel about the release of Pure? "It's hard to say, you can never tell. I hope that everyone enjoys listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it; it was such an amazing experience working with the people I worked with and getting to explore different genres of music. I had a ball making it, I hope people do enjoy it."
