Possessing a luminous soprano that has spanned musical theater, operettas, global traditions, and mature pop, Sarah Brightman sings, writes songs, dances, and acts while reaching charts and audiences on six continents. She performed leading roles in Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, both scored by her former husband Andrew Lloyd Webber, and created the part of Christine opposite Michael Crawford for the West End and Broadway openings. Several solo albums, notably Timeless from 1997 and Symphony from 2008, attained gold or platinum certification across numerous countries. Dreamchaser became her third release to enter the U.S. Top 20 when it appeared in 2013. She also devotes energy to philanthropic work, among them efforts to advance girls and women in science and technology.
Brightman entered the world on August 14, 1960, in Berkhampstead, England. She took up dance at age three and, ten years later, made her theatrical bow in London in Charles Strouse’s I and Albert. By 1976 she was dancing on the television series Pan’s People, then fronted the pop group Hot Gossip, whose single “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper” reached number six in the U.K. in 1978. Cast as Jemima in Lloyd Webber’s Cats in 1981, she later drew his attention when he attended her performance in the children’s opera Nightingale, after which the pair began a relationship and married in 1984. Their bond proved both personal and artistic; she developed the role of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera and appeared in his 1985 Requiem and the 1989 musical Aspects of Love. Although they divorced in 1990, she toured that year in The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber: A Concert Spectacular.
Alongside her stage appearances, Brightman began issuing solo recordings with 1988’s The Trees They Grow So High and 1989’s The Songs That Got Away. As I Came of Age in 1990 incorporated material from Aspects of Love and Hair along with interpretations of songs by the Everly Brothers and Aimee Mann. Dive followed in 1993 and Fly in 1995. Timeless climbed into the Top Five in the U.K. and Canada in 1997 while marking her first solo entry on the Billboard 200. Eden scored another international success the next year. The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection and a further collection of lesser-known show tunes titled The Songs That Got Away both appeared in 1999. Luna arrived in spring 2000, with Encore released the following year. She pursued a Middle Eastern motif on the 2003 album Harem. Love Changes Everything: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, Vol. 2 surfaced in 2005, succeeded by the CD/DVD Diva: The Singles Collection in 2006.
In 2007 Brightman participated in BBC One’s Just the Two of Us and performed at the Concert for Diana, the Shanghai Live Earth concert, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The year 2008 brought Symphony and A Winter Symphony as well as the PBS presentation Symphony: Live in Vienna. Symphony achieved her strongest U.S. chart showing to that point, reaching number 13. Her appearance at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing further broadened her visibility among Asian and Latin American listeners, prompting extensive touring in both regions over the next three years. The Vienna concert received an audio release in 2009. She established permanent residency in the United States in 2010. The space-themed Dreamchaser arrived in early 2013, after which she launched the Gala: An Evening with Sarah Brightman tour in 2016, performing with orchestras worldwide. While preparing an album with producer Frank Peterson, she joined the Royal Christmas Gala tour for 22 European dates in 2017. The resulting Hymn appeared in 2018 on Decca Gold and was followed by a tour exceeding 100 shows across five continents. In late 2019 she issued the live DVD/album Hymn in Concert drawn from that tour.
