Maria Arredondo

Maria Arredondo
Background information
Born	(1985-07-06)6 July 1985 Vennesla, Norway
Genres	Pop
Occupations	Singer
Years active	2002-Present
Labels	Universal Music Norway 2002-
Website	www.maria-arredondo.net www.maria-arredondo.co.uk

Maria Arredondo (born 6 July 1985 in Vennesla, Norway) is a Norwegian pop singer. The name Arredondo comes from her Chilean stepfather.^[1]

Career

Arredondo started her singing career early. By the age of 10, she had already participated in some local concerts in her home town Vennesla. After that, Arredondo spent some time developing her own style. In March 2003, Arredondo released her first album, the self-titled Maria Arredondo by Universal Music Norway. The album was a success in Norway, attaining the highest possible scores from an important Norwegian newspaper, VG.^[2]

In November 2004, Arredondo released her second album, Not Going Under. This was the first album to have videos from the singles, as Arredondo did not produce any videos for her first album.

After Arredondo released her Christmas album, Min Jul with some tracks produced and arranged by Jon Lord of Deep Purple). The track "On Christmas Day" was released as a single. Arredondo's three albums have combined sales of over 150,000.^[3]

Arredondo was among other contributions of singers like Marit Larsen in the song "For a Friend" and Marion Raven in the song "That Day", both members of the defunct band M2M.

On 12 November 2007, she released her fourth album For a Moment. The first single from this album, "Brief and Beautiful" became a monster-hit throughout the fall. "Brief and Beautiful" was written by Hanne Sørvaag and Harry Sommerdahl, and a Spanish-language adaptation of this song called "Fue para los dos" was released earlier in 2007 by Spanish singer Edurne.

Her fourth album was met with mixed reviews. On the album, "Even when you're with me" is a cover of the Spanish singer Chenoa's "Me Enamoro Del Dolor", and "If You Could Only See Me" was originally recorded by another Norwegian artist called Ina.

In the fall of 2007, it was also announced that Arredondo will star as Maria Von Trapp in the Sound of Music, which will be a major production in Norway - premiering in the fall of 2008.^{[citation needed]} This is the first major production of the Sound of Music in Norway in about 20 years (Sissel Kyrkjebø played the part as Maria Von Trapp back then).

Arredondo entered the qualifying rounds of the Melodi Grand Prix 2010 (the Norwegian selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest) on 16 January 2010 and was voted through to the national final, with the song "The Touch", which is written by Rolf Løvland.

Today, Maria works (beside her singing career) 20% in Heggedal church, Asker.

According to an inside news on July 2012, Maria Arredondo was recording a solo album in the studio, and the album was expected to be released before June 2013.^{[citation needed]}In February 2013, a new single from Maria titled "Det Jeg Har Gitt Fra Meg" was released.

Musical style

Arredondo's musical style is a mixture of pop and dream pop very similar to artists such as M2M, Natalie Imbruglia, Michelle Branch, Jewel, and The Cranberries.

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

/ : The singles were only released as radio single.
—: The singles did not enter the charts

Features

References

External links

• Maria Arredondo.net ?dead link?
• UK Fansite
• Chinese Fanclub on Baidu
• Another older Chinese Fanclub on Baidu