Myleene Angela Klass (born 6 April 1978) is a British actress, singer, model, pianist and media personality, formerly a member of the defunct British pop band Hear'Say.
Early life
Klass was born in Gorleston, Norfolk, England, to an English/Austrian father and a Filipina mother. She comes from six generations of classical musicians on her father's side: Klass's grandmother was an opera singer and her grandfather left his violin to her, which she later went on to play.
Klass began to learn the piano and (violin) from the age of four and then the harp at 12. She took Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) exams in violin, piano and voice. She received an A grade in A-level music, and became a Norfolk County scholar.
Klass was firstly educated at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School then she went to Cliff Park High School in Gorleston, before going to Notre Dame High School, Norwich for a short time. While at school she spent her Saturdays studying singing at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and later on studied on the prestigious musical theatre course at the Royal Academy of Music, University of London.
Pre- Popstars
Before finding fame via Popstars , Klass provided backing vocals on tour with the likes of k.d. lang, Michael Crawford and Robbie Williams. She has also toured with Cliff Richard.
In 1998, Klass spent a short period as part of a reality show for Bravo, called The Doll's House .
On 13 November 1999, Klass was also a featured back up singer for Cliff Richard's ITV1 An Audience With TV special, appearing on stage with him for a rendition of the number-one single The Millennium Prayer .
In July 2000, Klass was included in the programme of Stagecoach Theatre Arts' "Little Performers Holiday Workshop"'s presentation of "Mini Grease" as one of three dance and drama coaches.
More high profile work followed as Klass rapidly made her West End theatre debut in the hit show Miss Saigon . After her run in Saigon was completed, Klass then first auditioned for the first pop reality show which would go on to make her a household name.
Popstars /Hear'Say
Main article: Hear’SayKlass's big break came when in 2001 the ITV1 show called Popstars gave an opportunity for contestants to become part of a newly formed pop band. Klass attended the auditions and made it through several elimination rounds. She was then chosen as one of the 10 finalists and became a member of Hear'Say alongside Kym Marsh, Suzanne Shaw, Danny Foster and Noel Sullivan. To do so, Klass had beaten 4,000 other hopefuls to a place in the group. The rejected five contestants from the final 10 became the chart-topping Liberty X.
Hear'Say's first single Pure and Simple was the fastest selling non-charitable record ever, selling 1.3 million copies. This record has since been beaten by Will Young, the first winner of Pop Idol, and his debut single Anything is Possible/Evergreen . Previously, Myleene debuted in a classical 4 piece called 'Vio'.
Popstars , Hear'Say's debut album (named after the TV show), sold 1.2 million copies in the UK.
Following the success of their first album, the band were given their own TV show entitled Hear'Say It's Saturday . During the show's run, the band had a chance to perform with established artists such as Lionel Richie, Celine Dion, Bradley Walsh, Blue and Atomic Kitten.
At the end of 2001, Hear'Say appeared on the prestigious Royal Variety Performance.
Subsequently, the group achieved a 37-date sell-out arena tour and performed numerous television guest appearances. Klass made many appearances with Hear'Say on TV and at live performance venues during 2002. The pop act's many promotional appearances during the year were also broadcast as part of their own TV shows entitled Hear'Say: A New Chapter In Full and The Hear'Say Story .
In total, Hear'Say had 4 top ten singles including two number 1's in the British charts, before splitting among a blaze of media headlines after a reported long term feud between Klass and Marsh. The feud resulted in Marsh leaving the band in December 2001 and being replaced by Johnny Shentall in 2002.
After Hear'Say
Almost a year after the Hear'Say break-up on 13 May 2003, Klass signed a five-album deal with Universal Classics and Jazz. The first promotional single for the album had been recorded, and Klass stated that she would be going into the studio to finish the album off for release in October. Promotion started with the release of the main promotional single Toccata and Fugue to TV channels and was the first ever classical piece to appear on British music television channel The Box. She also appeared in the video for Da Ya Think I'm Sexy with the FHM Hot 100, which went to #10 in the UK.
Moving On
Klass's album, titled Moving On , was launched on the 20 October 2003 at Harrods, London. The launch included two performances ( Toccata and Fugue and Moonlight Sonata ), as well as a press photoshoot and a signing for fans who had come along.
The album was described as "a refreshing collection of beautiful classical pieces" and included reworked versions of popular classical pieces such as Fauré's Pavane , Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Satie's Gymnopedie No.2 .
Moving On also included music from a pair of popular Oscar-winning films, namely Now We Are Free (from Gladiator ) and the theme from The Piano by Michael Nyman. New arrangements for piano of more contemporary works were also included on the album. The 'pop' tracks recorded were Linkin Park's Crawling and Daniel Bedingfield's recent chart-topping hit If You're Not The One .
In its first week of release Moving On peaked at #2 in the Classical charts, behind Hayley Westenra. By mid-December 2003, the album had been certified Gold.
On 15 May 2004, Moving On was nominated as Peoples' Album Of The Year in the Classical BRIT Awards. The award went to Bryn Terfel's platinum-selling record Bryn .
Follow up
Rumours started appearing of a re-release of Moving On with a predicted five new tracks. This was later confirmed by Klass herself, although no new information was given. It was later revealed that the re-release had been pushed back because of conflicts between Klass's new management company (Mel Bush Organisation) and her previous (Safe Management) regarding royalties. Finally the plan was scrapped, the only remnant being the Asian release of Moving On , which includes three new tracks: Trouble (a Coldplay cover with Myleene's vocals), Sahara and Le Onde . It was then revealed by Klass herself that she would be working on a new album, which would include a number of tracks in which her vocals appeared. However, on 23 October 2004 it was announced that Klass would not be releasing any further material through her current label UCJ, Universal Classics & Jazz. In a statement through her official fansite, she revealed that she had plans to move toward a pop career, as many people had been wondering why she was not singing. However, little information has been heard about such an album.
EMI Classics
On 28 March, 2007 Klass signed a record contract with EMI Classics as both a recording artist and an ambassador for the EMI Classics UK roster of artists. These include Alfie Boe, Natasha Marsh and Natalie Clein. The deal includes the release of a series of albums on which Klass performs two exclusive tracks and chooses a number of her favourite classical pieces from the EMI Classics back catalogue. The first album Myleene's Music for Romance , was released on 2 July 2007 and went straight to number 1 in the classical chart. A music video to accompany the lead track Cinema Paradiso was shot at the Bucharest Opera House, Romania in April. The photo session for the album was shot by Mitch Jenkins.
Myleene's second album in the EMI series, Myleene’s Music for Mothers , was released on 18 February 2008, and features two tracks played by Klass. These two tracks are the popular ‘America’ from West Side Story, written by Leonard Bernstein and Ennio Morricone’s ‘Chi Mai’, known best as the theme tune to the 1981 BBC TV drama serial ‘The Life and Times of Lloyd George’.
Non-music career
Klass's management company (Mel Bush Organisation) specialised only in classical artists, so she subsequently moved to a new management company Shalit Global, who continue to manage her today.
Actress
In early 2006, Klass was cast as one of the 3 women starring in the long running play The Vagina Monologues and performed in Bromley, Richmond and Brighton. Her run was then extended to include all dates in Nottingham. She has also participated in Serbian version of The Vagina Monologues in April 2006 in Belgrade, Serbia.
Television presenter
In August 2005, Klass was signed as a presenter for the ITV1 music show CD:UK alongside Lauren Laverne and Johny P, with her first appearance shown on 17 September 2005. However, CD:UK was axed in March 2006 by ITV, because of poor ratings.
On 27 November, 2005, beside Brian Dowling, Klass presented the Variety Club Showbusiness Awards which were broadcast on LIVINGtv. In 2005, Klass appe
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