Katherine Jenkins

Emerging during the early years of the new millennium, Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins quickly established herself as the United Kingdom’s most commercially successful classical performer of the preceding quarter century. Her warm vocal timbre and engaging platform charisma brought broad attention after she sang at Westminster Cathedral for Pope John Paul II’s silver jubilee in 2003. Capitalizing on that exposure, her debut release Premiere reached the summit of the U.K. Classical Album Chart in 2004. Six further albums also attained that position, and two of them—Second Nature from 2004 and Living a Dream from 2005—each received the Classic Brit Award for Album of the Year. Although primarily a British favorite, Jenkins gained international visibility; in 2012 she temporarily stepped away from recording to finish as runner-up on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Recognition for her musical contributions and philanthropic efforts arrived in 2014 when she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Born on June 29, 1980, in Neath, West Glamorgan, Wales, Jenkins first encountered classical music at age seven and spent her childhood studying piano while participating in the local choir. She joined the Royal School of Church Music Cathedral Singers in 1990 and performed with the National Youth Choir of Wales. At seventeen she entered London’s Royal Academy of Music, where she performed several operatic roles and acquired fluency in Italian, German, French, and Russian. Postgraduate opera studies followed, supplemented by part-time vocal teaching; however, after winning the Face of Wales modeling competition she also worked as a fashion model. In 2003 Universal Classics awarded her a six-album, seven-figure contract described at the time as the largest in British classical-music history. While preparing her first album she again performed at Westminster Cathedral for Pope John Paul II and made her debut at the Sydney Opera House. Premiere appeared in spring 2004, immediately topped the classical charts, and prompted a rapid successor, Second Nature. The pair propelled Jenkins to unprecedented commercial heights within the genre, leading her to include a classical arrangement of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” on the 2005 collection Living a Dream.

Serenade claimed both the U.K. classical and pop album charts in 2006; Rejoice repeated the feat the next year. Sacred Arias marked her final Universal project in 2008 before she moved to Warner Bros. for the pop-leaning Believe in 2009 and Daydream in 2011. Her first official holiday album, This Is Christmas, followed in 2012. Returning to Decca, she issued the L’Amour collection in 2013 and simultaneously raised more than £25,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support by completing the London Marathon. Her charitable and artistic contributions earned an O.B.E. in the 2014 New Year’s honours. Later that year she revisited her classical-crossover style with Home Sweet Home, a set of anthems celebrating her Welsh roots.

After pausing her career to welcome her first child in 2015, Jenkins resumed activity with her eleventh studio album, Celebration, timed for Queen Elizabeth II’s ninetieth birthday in 2016. The record featured patriotic selections, among them the complete three-verse version of “God Save the Queen.” In 2017 she portrayed Julie Jordan opposite Alfie Boe’s Billy Bigelow in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel at the English National Opera. Guiding Light appeared in 2018 and contained the single “Jealous of the Angels.” Cinema Paradiso, devoted to film songs, arrived in 2020 and was followed by Christmas Spectacular, captured at the Royal Albert Hall during COVID-19 lockdown and subsequently released theatrically as well as on Blu-ray and CD.