Charlotte Church (born Charlotte Maria Reed on February 21, 1986 at Llandaff, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales) is a soprano. She introduced her aunt on ITV's Big Big Talent Show in 1998, was asked to sing and was heard by Jonathan Shalit, who then helped her to secure a record contract with Sony Classical at age 12. In recent years she has moved away from the classical field into pop music. Church's looks and popular repertoire have made her a great commercial success. Her career began at the age of 12 with her breakthrough album, Voice of an Angel, where she showcased her unique soprano voice in a collection of arias, sacred songs, and traditional pieces that sold millions of copies worldwide and made her the youngest artist with a No. 1 selling album to date. She made a cameo appearance on the US CBS series Touched by an Angel. She later appeared on numerous PBS specials and television commercials, most notably in the acclaimed Just Wave Hello campaign for the Ford Motor Company. The song appeared on her self-titled second album, which included another array of operatic, religious, and traditional tracks. In 2000, Charlotte released Dream a Dream, an album of Christmas carols. Charlotte has been represented in the press as an opera singer; but she has never sung in any performances of opera, only recordings (and those of excerpts, usually edited and engineered to fit her range). However, up until 2001, she had recorded only two pop (or classical crossover songs) -- "Just Wave Hello", and "Dream a Dream", a duet with child artist Billy Gilman. |
