Singer Hayley Westenra

Celebrities, Celebrity Q&A, People
on December 4, 2005
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I just heard a wonderful new version of the Joni Mitchell 1960s classic "Both Sides Now" on the radio. Who was the female singing it? Her voice was amazing.
—L. Burke, Bend, Ore.

That amazing voice belongs to international singing phenom Hayley Westenra, who topped the United Kingdom classical charts in 2003 with a debut CD that also became the biggest-selling album of all time in her homeland of New Zealand—when she was only 16. Westenra, now 18, also had a No. 1 smash in Japan with her version of "Amazing Grace" and has performed to rave reviews in New York's Carnegie Hall, the Sydney (Australia) Opera House and Royal Albert Hall in London. Her version of "Both Sides Now" is on her most recent CD, Odyssey, and she's touring the United States through February with the young international "classical crossover" quartet Il Divo.