Hayley Westenra (18 page)

Steve and Kathryn, along with Nicola and Erica, who work with them, form part of my support system. My family are my biggest supporters, though – especially Mum. She gives me an honest opinion every time, and she will never tell me something just to keep me happy. There's always a danger that people will just tell an artist, 'Yeah, it'll be fine. It'll be great.' But Mum will say, 'I don't like that. I do like this.' She's also quite a good reflection of the general public's reaction because she comes at everything from the perspective of a layperson rather than a music professional.

So, I have my family and then a great management team. They are a team that I really do trust. I've worked with Steve for a long time and I feel as if we are all in it together. Whenever we do things, it's a team effort, as opposed to their telling me what to do, or my telling them what to do. I'm also very lucky because Steve and Kathryn are very dedicated to their work. It would be hard to work with a manager who regarded their job as simply a nine-to-five activity. You will never hear Steve or Kathryn say the words, 'Well, I finish at six and that's me done for the day.'

I'm very much a believer in listening to everyone and taking on board their advice, to help me come to a decision, which will often be a mixture of what different people have told me. I deal with my voice in the same way. I'll go along to different singing teachers and have lessons with various people and sometimes their advice can be conflicting.

At the end of the day, I'll do whatever feels most comfortable for me. There are so many different ideas and opinions out there that you need to be sure of what you want rather than try to do what other people want – especially when it comes to making an album with your name and picture on the front. If you try to keep all of the experts happy, you are just going to fall flat on your face, because, when it comes to making music, the whole thing is so subjective. It's very hard to manufacture a hit album –
they tend to come about in a far more organic way. For example, anyone trying slavishly to recreate
Pure
today would struggle. There's no point in one artist simply mimicking a format that has been successful for another artist. It's almost inevitable that direct copycats don't work out as well as the original artist. So, it's important to follow your gut instincts. Even if your album is not as successful as you would have liked, you will have been true to yourself and you will have created something of which you can be proud. It also means that you can't blame anyone else if it goes wrong.

It can be quite a lonely existence, particularly when you are travelling around the world, so you do have to be quite
independent.
Some people cope with this by employing a huge entourage to travel with them. I quite like my own space and having some peace and quiet before a performance, so the last thing that I would want would be a room full of people.

The artists with big entourages tend to forget that they are actually paying for all these hangers-on to be around them. They are not necessarily their friends: they are their employees. If they arrive somewhere with half a dozen hairstylists, makeup artists and dressers, these people are all being paid by somebody – and it's usually ultimately the artists themselves, although the record company may pick up the initial bill, before charging it back against income that has yet to be earned by the artist through selling records. I would much rather remember my roots and keep it real.

When you spend half of your time travelling and waiting in queues to go through security,
patience
is an important virtue. It becomes even more significant when you discover that you have been randomly selected for a baggage search yet again. When it comes to your career, you don't want to be
too
patient, though. You should never rest on your laurels
and there are times when it pays to be snapping at people's heels to make things happen.

You need to have a healthy amount of hunger and self-reliance. You can't always rely on other people to remember to do things for you. On some occasions, there's simply no substitute for doing something yourself, especially if it's important that it really does get done.

When I'm recording, I'm especially keen to ensure that we end up with the best possible track. It's dangerous if the people around you become too laid back about making records. The one problem that most artists face is that people get so caught up in image and all of the dozens of things going on around them that the very reason they are there – the
music –
can be forced to take a back seat if they are not careful, whereas it really should be at the forefront of everything.

If your dream does come true and you finally do get the break that you so desperately want, always remember why you started to perform in the first place and how you have arrived at your goal. For me, I always go back in my mind to my early days in Christchurch and ask myself, 'Which songs really worked for me when I was out busking? Which songs grabbed people's attention? Which songs and what style of singing earned me my record contract?'

I first got noticed because of my pure classical-sounding voice. If I were suddenly to change my tune and do something in the pop style, it would be dangerous. It might work, but it would be a long way from the reason I've got to where I'm today. Record companies can often try to push an artist in a particular direction. My American record company tried to move me towards being a pop artist, but I resisted, saying, 'Wait a minute! I got signed because of my classical music,
not
because I was a pop artist. Now, you're trying to make me pop – something I'm not.'

My final piece of advice to any would-be singer is don't ever forget that doing this job should be
fun.
Life is there to be enjoyed and it can be easy to overlook this as we all get so caught up in chasing after goals. I always have to remind myself that happiness is not a destination, it's a journey. I think it's so important that we should not be constantly chasing after things and that we actually go out and enjoy the moment.

It's very easy to let this pass us by because the world that we live in now is so fast-moving. I try to make sure that, as well as setting myself goals, which I'll hopefully achieve in time, I also live in the present and enjoy that too.

The music industry has a sense of momentum about it. People come and people go; not just those in front of the microphone in the public eye, but those behind the scenes, too. If there's one thing that I've learned over the past four years since
Pure
was released, it's that any successful artist constantly needs to be looking for the next development in their career. Those people who stand still risk getting stuck for ever. So, when Dickon Stainer and Mark Wilkinson at Universal Classics and Jazz in the UK suggested that I might like to consider singing the role of Maria in their new
recording of
Leonard Bernstein's legendary musical
West Side Story,
celebrating the work's fiftieth anniversary, I jumped at the chance.

The tenor
Vittorio Grigolo agreed to sing the leading male role and Maria's love interest, Tony. I was totally into the idea from the start. In terms of age, we are well suited to the parts. We also fit the bill in that we are two different nationalities, with Vittorio coming from Italy. It was one of those offers that I didn't have to think twice about. I've always been a huge fan of the music because it's so varied and, to put it simply, because it's absolutely packed full of really great tunes.

Leonard Bernstein was such a talented guy and his score embraces opera, musical theatre, rock, jazz and pop. He really has it all in there, which could be a complete nightmare on paper, but the way in which he skilfully blends these different influences together creates a sublime musical work.

For me personally, singing Maria was quite a departure from what I've been used to, but I relished the opportunity. It's what I would describe as a 'big sing' and the role is demanding because it covers a lot of ground vocally and emotionally. Maria goes through sadness, anger, excitement and passionate love all in the space of a few songs. As well as different styles of singing, the role covers quite a big range of notes as well. Despite the challenge, I loved singing it and found the whole experience of making the album exhilarating and totally rewarding.

My own links to
West Side Story
go back to when I was very young, when I sang
'I Feel Pretty' at my end-of-year ballet recital, leading the rest of the class in a performance of the song. At that age, not knowing anything about the song's context in terms of the musical as a whole, I felt very vain singing it.

A couple of years later, I saw
West Side Story
in its entirety and gained a much better appreciation of the story.
Gradually, I began to sing more of the songs, such as
'One Hand, One Heart' and
'Tonight'. My favourite song of Maria's is
'I Have a Love', which comes after 'A
Boy Like That'. In the song, Maria tells her brother's girlfriend, Anita, that she knows that she should not be in love with Tony because he's not from the same background. Anita has told her that he's wrong for Maria. Maria says that she understand that he's wrong for her in so many ways, but she loves him and there's nothing that she – or anyone else – can do about it.

It's a fantastic part of the story, where the audience has just heard 'A Boy Like That', which is a very intense moment, and then they hear 'I Have a Love', which is more romantic and reflective. It pulls on the audience's heartstrings and I defy anyone not to be moved when they see it performed on stage.

Both Vittorio and I would love to take the roles of Tony and Maria on stage in a full production of
West Side Story.
So far we have sung the full parts together only when we were making the CD. We did perform highlights from the musical at an outdoor
Classic FM concert at
Woburn Abbey. This was quite an experience, since, even though it was in the height of summer, it came right in the middle of England's biggest flooding crisis in living memory. The wet weather didn't manage to dampen everyone's spirits, though, and it was very much a typically English occasion.

I'm full of admiration for performers who appear in long runs of musicals. Actors who appear in musical theatre are incredibly talented and have enormous stamina, and I like to think that it's something that I could imagine myself trying out at some stage in my career.

West Side Story
came at just the right time for me because, although I found the music pushed me in new directions, it coincided with a natural growth in my voice as I become older. At the moment, I'm really enjoying the new
dimensions to my voice and exploring different sensations and different spaces of resonance.

Things can still go wrong, though. I've come to realise that life as a singer is never entirely smooth and sometimes I've only myself to blame. I tend to leave things to the last minute; I hold my hands up and admit that it's one of my many faults. Now, I love my sleep and, as far as I'm concerned, it's not just that I'm lazy. Rest is very important for the voice. I always try to maximise my sleeping time. I can get ready in twenty minutes in the morning, if I have to, and I like to set my alarm for as late as possible.

When I was back in New Zealand at the beginning of 2007, I was asked to sing 'Pokarekare Ana' and
'Abide With Me' on
Good Morning,
the live national breakfast television show. I arrived at the TV station and thought that I had a comfortable hour to sort out my hair and makeup and generally get myself organised. As I walked through the door, one of the producers said to me, 'We'd love to have you on air in ten minutes.' Panic-stricken, I charged into the hair and makeup room and warmed up my voice sitting in the chair while the makeup lady fussed around me.

I knew that I was appearing on the programme twice, in two different segments. I was told that I would be singing my old favourite 'Pokarekare Ana' in the first segment and that 'Abide With Me' would be coming up later on in the morning. This suited me because I was hoping to go over the words to 'Abide With Me', just to refresh myself, since it was a song that I had not performed live for quite some time.

I walked into the studio and tested the microphone during a pre-recorded package just before I was due to go on air. Then the presenters introduced me as singing 'Abide With Me'. I panicked. I should have launched into 'Pokarekare Ana' regardless, but, instead, I thought to myself, Oh sure, I can do this. I know the words.

I was singing
a cappella
and so I had no clues from the musicians as to which words were coming next. I knew the first verse. Things were going fine. As I was coming to the end of the first verse, I realised that I was uncertain of the second verse and I had a choice to make: I could either stop there or I could carry on and try my chances at getting the second verse right. I had a fifty-fifty chance of pulling it off. I decided to go on because I thought that it would be noticeably too short if I sang only the one verse of 'Abide With Me'. Looking back, I realise I should have stuck to the one verse and nobody would have known. But in the heat of the moment – when I asked myself, 'Should I or shouldn't I?' – I took the risk and messed it up.

I started to sing the second verse and then my mind went completely blank. I couldn't remember the second line of the second verse. My heart was pounding; my palms were sweating; my mind was blank. Even though it happened in a split second, thoughts raced through my mind: Oh, my gosh! I've never done this before. I've never forgotten the words to a song live on national TV. Please come to me. Please come to me. I said a little prayer, but it didn't work.

I was convinced that my reputation was about to go down the gurgler. It was not as if I were singing a trite pop song, either: 'Abide With Me' is a hymn with very meaningful words. It's a hymn to which lots of people watching the television that morning knew the correct words. In the end, I made up the rest of the verse. Perhaps every second word was correct. I think some of the words might roughly have had the same vowel sounds as the correct version.

I'm not quite sure how many people realised. I certainly didn't want to highlight it because it seemed that the people around me in the studio had no idea. One of the guests appearing on the programme later on came up to me and said, 'Oh, it was beautiful.' At that point, I decided that maybe I should just keep quiet.

I met up with my friend Emma Ritchie later that day.

'Did you watch me on TV?' I asked tentatively, because I was curious to see what she said.

'Yeah, yeah,' came the nonchalant reply.

'Did you notice anything strange about the lyrics?' piped up Mum, with a cheeky glint in her eye.

Emma paused and said, 'Now that you come to mention it, I was doing my ironing and there was a point when I looked up and thought that there was something strange about the song, but I dismissed it from my mind and carried on with the iron.'

If Emma had not spotted it straightaway, then I was pretty certain that I had got away with it by the skin of my teeth and that my reputation was not in tatters. I'm often asked how I remember the words to so many songs. For one thing, it's my job to know the words and, whereas you might sing along to the words of a song that you hear on the radio or on a CD, unlike me, you are not
paid
to remember the words. Singers develop a huge repertoire of music that they can remember and they tend not to think too hard about the processes they use to commit those words to their memory banks. If you intellectualise it too much, there's a danger that you might start panicking and that this might cause you to forget the words.

I pick up lyrics and tunes through repetition. If I have a piece to learn in a hurry, I listen to it on repeat on a CD or on my iPod. I play it over and over again while I'm doing my chores around the house. If I have a long journey, I take printed scores with me and read through them over and over. Sometimes, it's the old repertoire that can be the most scary because I find that it lulls me into a false sense of security. I like to mix up the song choices in my live concerts with tracks from each of my albums. This means that occasionally I come to sing something that I've performed a million times before, but not for a while, and I'm hit by
a moment of realisation that I might not remember the words.

Thankfully, though, they do seem to be indelibly etched on to my brain on all occasions – except for appearances on early-morning breakfast television shows!