I've been following Nolwenn's career since 2005, when I came across her cover of "Runaway" at a Corrs fan site and was captivated by her beautiful voice and tone. She also seems like a good soul and she's left-handed like me, haha. I have all her albums and one single. I had the kind help of my fellow Corrs fan, Simone, helping me with some of the lyrics.
She was born Nolwenn Le Magueresse, but would later take her mother’s maiden name of Leroy (please pronounce this the French way!
). When she was about ten years old her parents divorced. Her father was a professional footballer. She went to a music school in Vichy where she learned to play the violin. After having spent a year in the U.S. (Ohio) as an exchange High School student, she was on her way to study law when she was persuaded by family and friends in St. Renan in Brittany to audition for the French TV "idol" contest Star Academy during the show's second season. She had long harbored dreams of becoming a music star. In fact, she spent weekends working at the checkout in a local supermarket to pay for classical singing lessons (she can sing a mean Habanera from Carmen). Viewers of Star Academy, Season 2 were astonished by her moving duets with major artists from around the world, and her mesmerizing voice: rich, round, and distinguished by that beautiful, natural vibrato. In December 2002, she was voted the winner and released her eponymous Nolwenn Leroy in March 2003. She does a tearjerker of a song on the album called "14 Février" that just blew me away.
Here's a performance of "Une Femme Cachée," one of her tracks from her debut album, released not long after her victory in Star Academy:
The second album Histoires Naturelles was produced by French singer/songwriter Laurent Voulzy (who has done work with Andrea Corr). Here a presentation of the title song from the album, "Histoire Naturelle":
This was followed by a live tour album, covering songs from the first two albums. The fourth album, Le Cheshire Cat Et Moi was folk, jazz, pop and involved some collaboration with American artist Jonatha Brooke. Here's the video for "Faut-il, Faut-il pas?" a somewhat personal song about balance that I am told has some inspiration in the fact that Nolween is a Libra:
As SteveW points out, Nolwenn more recent music has focused on her home in Brittany, which is one of the Celtic regions of Western Europe. This map shows these regions:
Her Celtic album, Bretonne (Brittany) included a version of "Mná Na H'éireann":
I also like this version of Je Ne Serai Jamais Ta Parisienne performed before an audience in her home region. She gets very emotional during this, which is very touching.
Here are some musical souvenirs that I picked up at her website:
A version of "Without You" (written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger and made famous by Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey):
A version of "Fields of Gold" (Sting, Eva Cassidy):
Another English-language singing performance - Leon Russell's "A Song for You" (performed for a radio show):
Here's an English interview that was done during her recent visit to New York this year. It was her first time back in the states in 14 years and she met her host family from her exchange student days:
While in New York, she promoted a new album for the American market called simply Nolwenn:
At just about the same time, she released another album in France called Ô Filles de l'Eau.
Steverino