Tina Arena

Tina Arena (born 1 November 1967)^[1] is an Australian singer, songwriter and musical theatre actress. She has won several awards, most notably 6 ARIA Awards and in both 1996 and 2000 she received the World Music Award for the world's best selling Australian artist. She has sold approximately eight million records worldwide to date.

Biography

Filippina Lydia Arena was born to Italian immigrants, Giuseppe and Franca Arena, living in the Melbourne suburb of East Keilor, Victoria. She has two sisters, Nancy and Silvana. Her family calls her Pina which evolved into her stage name, Tina. Arena attended St. Columba's College, Melbourne, in Essendon, from 1980 and graduated in 1985.

Arena began her career as a 7-year-old, singing live on Australia's longest running variety television show, Young Talent Time. Even as a young girl she was known for her powerful voice and stage presence, but she dropped from sight for several years following her Young Talent Time tenure, working the club circuit alone and in bands and appearing in musicals. Tina Arena suffered much and found it difficult to be taken seriously as an artist due to her image as a child star, her being a woman and her Italian heritage. In 1988, at the age of 21, she was reinvented as a raunchy disco diva with the national #3 Platinum selling single "I Need Your Body". It gave her a successful album, Strong as Steel, and more hits, but for Arena this was a momentary digression, as this was never a music style or image with which she was comfortable.

After a couple of years, Arena broke the stigma of a TV childhood and carved out a successful solo career with Columbia Records. The David Tyson-produced Don't Ask was Australia's biggest selling album of 1995, and the biggest selling album by any Australian female to date. Don't Ask sold over 2 million copies worldwide and was certified 10× platinum in Australia. Chains scaled the charts in the UK to #6, and charted well throughout Europe, earning her numerous awards in the process. The song was also a minor hit in the United States, peaking at #38 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[2]

The follow-up album, In Deep, produced by Foreigner's Mick Jones, was also a multi-platinum success. The singles "I Want to Know What Love Is" and "Burn" even had minor success in some U.S. airplay charts and Arena's songwriting abilities were particularly well noted in Nashville where a number of pedigreed country music artists have since covered her songs, including Wynonna Judd ("Heaven Help My Heart", "Love's Funny That Way"), Jo Dee Messina ("Burn"), Pam Tillis ("If I Didn’t Love You"), Terri Clark ("Unsung Hero"), Kellie Coffey, Kathie Baillie ("Love's Funny That Way") and LeAnn Rimes ("You Made Me Find Myself").

An attempt by Sony to "break" Arena into the American market prompted the release of "If I Was a River", penned by Diane Warren, prior to In Deep's release there. The single was not particularly successful despite numerous promotional appearances on television shows such as Donny & Marie, but in 1999 she met label-mate Donna Summer who asked her to join her in concert to sing "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)". The duet was well received and subsequently released on Summer's live album Live & More Encore. Arena also performed for the opening ceremony of 2000 Summer Olympics singing "The Flame".

A foray into dance music in 2003 was also successful when Arena was featured on The Roc Project's "Never (Past Tense)" which made it into the United States Billboard dance Top 10. This marked the first time three performers associated with Young Talent Time were simultaneously in the chart's Top 10 with Dannii Minogue's "I Begin to Wonder" and Kylie Minogue's "Slow" also appearing. Arena performed the Tiësto remix of "Never" along with a new remix of "Dare You to Be Happy" live at the official Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras afterparty in March 2005.

Arena's collaboration with Marc Anthony, "I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You", from The Mask of Zorro soundtrack, gave her a new kind of European success, tipping the scales of her success in France where both the song and the movie became Top 10 hits. She began to record in French, and her single "Aller plus haut" moved in excess of one million units and peaked at #2 on the French national chart. Her debut French language album Un Autre Univers was released in December 2005 and was yet another Platinum milestone for her there, riding high in the French charts for well over a year and featuring the award-winning single "Aimer jusqu'à l'impossible". She is now credited as being one of only five non-French artists to achieve album sales in excess of a million units in France.

Despite her international success, Arena's popularity in Australia had begun to wane with her fourth album Just Me failing to match the success of Don't Ask and In Deep. This resulted in her being dropped by her Australian label Sony BMG after the release of a greatest hits album and subsequent tour in 2004.

Regardless of her recording achievements, musical theatre has always remained more than just a sideline for Arena. Her performance in the Australian production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, while still in her teens, was applauded by the show's producer, Andrew Lloyd Webber. She has since made acclaimed appearances in the UK production of Notre Dame de Paris, as Esmeralda, and as Sally Bowles in the Sam Mendes-directed Cabaret in 2002.^[3] Arena returned to the London stage in April 2007, starring as Roxie Hart in the hit West End production of Chicago.

Arena's sixth studio album titled Songs of Love & Loss was recorded independently and self-financed as she no longer had a recording contract in Australia. The album was eventually released on 1 December 2007 after a new deal was struck with EMI Australia. The record was primarily made up of torch songs originally recorded by women in the 1960s and 70s such as Dusty Springfield and Diana Ross and the arrangements featured a full string orchestra conducted by Simon Hale. A promotional tour of Australia in early November included appearances on Dancing with the Stars and Sunrise. Five concert dates backed by a 35 piece orchestra were held in December–January: three at the Sydney Opera House and two at Melbourne's Hamer Hall. The album peaked at #3 on the ARIA Top Albums chart.

While Arena was still promoting Songs of Love & Loss in Australia, her first French single in two years, "Entends-tu le monde?", was made available to French radio. The video was shot in and around Sydney during the promotional tour of her home country and went on heavy rotation on French music television channels upon its release. The song was the first single from her sophomore French album 7 vies which was released on 28 January 2008 and debuted at #12 on the official French charts, her highest debut ever in the country. The single "Entends-tu le monde?" was physically released on 11 February 2008 and debuted at #10 on the French charts, becoming her sixth top ten single there.

August 2008 saw Arena performing with Andrea Bocelli during his Australian tour. The two performed well received duets of "The Prayer", "Canto della Terra" and a cover of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love". Prior to the tour she had been in the UK recording her eighth studio album Songs of Love & Loss 2, which was released on 15 November 2008.^[4] For this album, her vocals were recorded live with the London Studio Orchestra, again conducted by Hale.^[5]

Arena & Alison Jiear at Sydney Mardi Gras 2009.

Alongside fellow Australian singer and songwriter Darren Hayes, Arena appeared as a guest judge during the London auditions of Australian Idol's sixth season. The episode featuring Arena and Hayes aired on 27 August 2008. She again appeared as a guest judge on 16 November while she was in Australia to promote Songs of Love & Loss 2.

Arena has been awarded a Knighthood of the Order of National Merit, the second highest civil honour in France, by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in February 2009 for her contributions to French culture.^[6][7]

In March 2009, Arena toured Australia in support of her album Songs of Love & Loss 2 and also appeared as a surprise guest performer at the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras party singing a medley of "Aimer jusqu'à l'impossible" and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" at 3 am accompanied by Alison Jiear on the latter.

2009 also saw the release of Arena's first French greatest hits album, The Best & le meilleur, and The Peel Me Sessions, an album of original material recorded in 2003 but rejected by her label at the time Sony. A live CD/DVD was released in Australia in February 2010, The Onstage Collection.

On 5 May 2010, Arena appeared on an Australian TV show called Hey Hey It's Saturday.

Personal life

In December 1995, Arena married her manager Ralph Carr. In 1999 they divorced; Carr subsequently sued claiming that Arena had broken a contract between them and owed him as much as a fifth of her earnings as her success had been attributable largely to his contacts, creative direction, and negotiating skills. The lawsuit was settled out of court and Arena's album Just Me and in particular the song "You Made Me Find Myself" were influenced by the relationship's breakdown.^[8]

In 2000, Arena began dating French artist Vincent Mancini, sometimes credited as Vincent Hare. Together, they have a son Gabriel Joseph, born 17 November 2005. The family is living between France, Australia, UK and often also Italy and Spain, but the real home stays always in Paris.^[9]

Discography

Awards

The following lists some of the nominations and awards won by Arena to date.

References

External links

• Official website
• Tina Arena Official Myspace
• Question and Answer session with Tina on Theatre.Com