She’s sung in front of queens and princes and shared stages with superstars of every musical genre - tenors, punks, pop idols and rappers. She’s performed at the Winter Olympics and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. And she’s on the biggest-selling film soundtrack of all time.

Defying labels and categories simply to be herself, Sissel is truly a one-off. With her unique voice she can turn her hand to any style of music, from operatic arias and centuries-old classical melodies to traditional folk, modern jazz, pop, punk and hip-hop. “My heart is in beautiful music,” she says. “Music that touches me.”

Sissel’s music has already touched millions. A child star since the age of 11, she is now a national institution in Norway and has sung all over the world, selling six million solo albums since her recording debut at the age of only 16 and featuring on the 30-million-selling soundtrack to Titanic. Somehow she’s also found time to bring up two children along the way.

With a repertoire ranging from Schubert and Chopin to Lloyd-Webber and Morricone, Handel and Bach to Lennon and Lord (that’s Jon Lord of rockers Deep Purple), Sissel was a crossover artist long before marketing men invented the term.

“I like the variety of doing a bit of everything,” she admits. “The style of music is not important to me as long as it has good melodies. Sometimes at concerts I like the music when it is groovy and other times I like when it is haunting. A lot of classical music has that element and folk music has it too.” Read more…