Brooke Fraser

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Brooke Gabrielle Fraser (born 15 December 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter.

Early life

Fraser is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black, Bernie Fraser and his wife Lynda Fraser. She grew up in Naenae, Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School then Naenae Intermediate and Naenae College.

Fraser started taking piano lessons at seven years of age, continuing until seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the acoustic guitar at fifteen. Notably, she has never taken any singing lessons.

She performed at Parachute, an annual New Zealand music festival, and has continued to do so each year since 2000 - including a special guest performance in 2007.

Fraser was a presenter on a cable television show. She began writing for the Soul Purpose magazine at age fifteen and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.^[1]

Musical career

In 2002, while Fraser was in Auckland, Scotty Pearson, the drummer for Elemeno P, organized a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interest and compared their offers. Fraser had about five different labels offering her deals, and in late 2002 she signed a multi-album deal with Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand.

What to Do With Daylight

Fraser's first album What to Do with Daylight was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at #1 and achieved gold status in the same week. The album eventually went 7 times platinum, selling over 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone. She remained on the album charts for a record 66 weeks.^[2] All five singles from her album reached the top 20 RIANZ charts, the official singles chart of New Zealand. Her album was the second best selling NZ album of 2004 (behind Hayley Westenra's Pure which went 11 times platinum).

Following the release of What to Do with Daylight, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with American artist John Mayer and then toured New Zealand with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie.^[3] Following this, Fraser set out with her band for her own What to Do with Daylight Tour and made several public and television appearances.^{[citation needed]} Whilst on tour with John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album Heavier Things, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.

What to Do with Daylight was also re-released as a two disc "Special Edition" following the album's success.

Albertine

In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she wrote the song "Albertine" about a young child (named Albertine), whom she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.^[4]

For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded^[5]. In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in Los Angeles to record the album. Later, Fraser also allowed her MySpace page to give visitors a listen to the album's first single "Deciphering Me", which was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single, and achieved #4 in the New Zealand single charts.

On 4 December 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status less than a month after its release and has remained, to date, in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on 31 March 2007. In Australia, it charted at #29 in its first week on 9 April and has thus far achieved Gold sales status in Australia.

On 6 April 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

In 2008, Fraser appeared on the Dave Barnes song "Believe" from his album Me + You + the World, performing backing vocals.

Albertine was also Fraser's U.S. debut, released 27 May 2008 and entered the Billboard 200 at #90 on 19 July 2008. Her album propelled in success with online sales after being chosen as Editor's Choice on iTunes. It reached #5 on the iTunes charts. On July 4 2008 Fraser supported Canadian artist/U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In August she toured the southern U.S.^[6] In September, she re-toured several major U.S. cities and completed the tour at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, UK.

Fraser is currently writing for her third album, scheduled for release in early 2010.

Personal life

After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney, where she has lived for five years. She commutes to the U.S. for touring. In March 2008 she married Scott Ligertwood, in Sydney, changing her name to Brooke Ligertwood^[7]. "Brooke Fraser" has solely become her stage name for her activity as a Sony BMG recording/touring artist, though prior to her marriage she had contributed songs to her local church (Hillsong Church) under her maiden name (now only her stage name). She continues to contribute to writing songs for her church, but these are now written as "Brooke Ligertwood" to make the distinction between her volunteer activities and her career as a mainstream recording artist. Among her notable worship songs are "Lead Me To The Cross" ^[8] and "Hosanna" ^[9].

Charity work

Fraser has been a World Vision Artist Associate since 2001. She has visited Cambodia and Tanzania with World Vision, the Philippines with Opportunity International and independently traveled to Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and in May 2007 when she filmed the music video for the song "Albertine". In 2006 she, along with Petra Bagust and Tau from Spacifix, appeared advertising the World Vision 40 Hour Famine; an event which raises funds for children in third world countries. She also sponsors a number of children through World Vision^{[citation needed]} and makes child sponsorship available to people at her shows in NZ, Australia and the U.S., in addition to providing her audiences with other ways of contributing to the work of World Vision (i.e. fundraising t-shirts etc).

Discography

Albums

• 2003: What to Do with Daylight
• 2006: Albertine

Singles

Awards

• Most promising Woman Musician Award & Overall winner - 1999 Hutt Valley Pepsi Smokefree Rockquest regional finals
• Best Female Solo Artist: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
• Breakthrough Artist of the Year: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
• Most Performed Work on NZ radio in the Last 12 Months: Better - Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2004
• Australasian Performing Right Association's Silver Scroll: Albertine - Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2007
• The Warehouse Highest Selling Album: Albertine - 2007 NZ Music Awards
• NZ on Air Airplay Record of the Year: Deciphering Me - 2007 NZ Music Awards
• Editor's Music Choice Award: Albertine - iTunes
• International Achievement - 2009 NZ Music Awards

Fraser was also awarded a satirical award:

• The most used fairy lights in a video clip (for "Arithmetic") - Studio 2 Awards (2004)

References

External links

• Official Brooke Fraser Website
• Official MySpace