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Emma Shapplin was born Marie-Ange Chapelain on 19 May 1974. Growing up in a suburb south of Paris, with her father (a policeman), her mother (a secretary) and two elder brothers, Marie-Ange was something of a tomboy in her early years. Indeed, the young Marie-Ange preferred a game of football or a spot of tree-climbing to any traditional female hobbies, and she showed no interest whatsoever in music or singing.
The Voice
However, Marie-Ange's life would change dramatically at the age of 14 when one of her friends introduced her to a local singing teacher. This 70-year-old teacher, a former singer herself, began giving lessons to Marie-Ange. The young teenager, who had never displayed any particular aptitude for study - schoolwork bored Marie-Ange to death! -suddenly developed a veritable passion for music. Indeed, Marie-Ange spent all her free time practising her scales and training her voice. And, under the careful supervision of her singing teacher, the talented young teenager soon began to reveal an exceptional soprano voice.
Despite making excellent progress with her teacher, Marie-Ange received little encouragement from her family. On the contrary, after she had been taking singing lessons for over a year, her parents refused to let her continue her training. They also banned her from attending school choir practice and began to push her towards what they considered to be a more 'serious' career. This proved to be an extremely distressing period for Marie-Ange. Increasingly, the young teenager resisted her parents' desire to transform her into a secretary, and clung to her ambition of launching a career as a professional singer. Secretly, Marie-Ange still harboured dreams of performing the "Queen of The Night" aria from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute".
In the end Marie-Ange had to settle for something a little less grand. A local hard rock group, North Wind, offered to take her on as their lead singer, and Marie-Ange immediately took up the offer. Over the next three years, the young singer would abandon her soprano scales and work on perfecting a deep, gravely voice better suited to North Wind's hard rock lyrics. Meanwhile, Marie-Ange gave in to her parents' wishes and began studying for her secretarial 'baccalauréat'. She failed her secretarial exams at the age of 18, but this failure did not appear to bother Marie-Ange at all. The young teenager's sights were set on totally different things.
The Fateful Encounter
Marie-Ange - who soon went on to change her stage name to Emma - left home at the age of 19 to move into her own flat in Paris. Life in the Big City proved to be no easy option, however, and Marie-Ange/Emma was forced to do a whole series of odd jobs to survive. But she did not seem to mind too much. For, in winning independence from her parents, the young teenager was free to take up her singing again and she soon went on to enrol for music lessons with teachers from the Paris Conservatoire.
After re-training her voice to professional standards, Emma Shapplin went on to record her first demo tape. With a little help from a friend of a friend, Emma soon got the chance to play the cassette to the well-known French singer Jean-Patrick Capdevielle (famous for his 80's hits "Quand t'es dans le désert" and "Chiquita"). Capdevielle was immediately captivated by Emma's voice and the pair soon realised they shared a mutual passion for opera. Recognising Emma's impressive vocal talent, Capdevielle offered to write an album for her and the pair gradually built up a working relationship. Shapplin and Capdevielle experimented with a number of different musical directions (including grunge!) but in the end they decided to base Emma's first album on classical music.
Jean-Patrick Capdevielle immediately set about writing the material for Emma's first album, with the aid of his son Jonathan (who helped out on "Miserere, Venere"). Capdevielle wrote nine songs for the new album, and Emma stepped in to collaborate on four of these. The lyrics, which Capdevielle originally wrote in French were then translated into Latin and ancient Provençal dialect by an Italian medievalist. As for the musical arrangements on Emma's first album, these were all based on the work of legendary 19th century Italian composers (ranging from Donizetti to Bellini). Emma's début album, "Carmine Meo", was released at the end of 1997 to general critical acclaim. Indeed, Ms. Shapplin was soon being hailed as a classical 'Diva' for the 90's.
The Overnight Rise To Fame
"Spente le stelle" and "Cuor Senza Sangue", the first single releases from Emma Shapplin's album, soon earned the young French singer an enthusiastic following of fans. Following the success of the singles, "Carmine Meo" rocketed to the top of the French album charts, selling 100,000 copies in just three months (thereby earning Emma Shapplin her first gold disc!) This phenomenal success was soon echoed on the international market - indeed, foreign sales of "Carmine Meo" quickly went on to rival those back home.
Given the success of European 'classical variété' acts such as Andréa Bocelli and André Rieu, it came as no surprise to anyone when Emma Shapplin's album became an overnight hit on the international music scene. Distributed in 26 countries on all five continents, "Carmine Meo" soared to the top of the charts worldwide - occasionally even overtaking Céline Dion and Madonna's albums in the charts! Emma Shapplin soon went on to become a household name in Greece, Lebanon, Canada , Mexico and even as far afield as New Zealand.
What's more, the young French star achieved her overnight fame without performing one single concert. Emma did appear on stage at Julien Clerc's recent concert in Brussels to sing a duet, and repeated the experience when Julien Clerc performed in Paris at Bercy stadium (in front of 16,000 people!) in April 98. But for the time being no individual tour dates are scheduled into Emma Shapplin's diary. Maybe, given her extraordinary popularity worldwide, Ms. Shapplin feels the concept of touring is completely unnecessary!
Mrs Shapplin did not stop touring (all arround the world) since 2002- as it always be her best dream.
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