Myleene Klass

Myleene was born in Norfolk in 1978 to an English-Austrian father and a Filipina mother. At the age of four, she picked up her grandfather’s violin for the first time, and shortly afterwards began playing the piano.

She says, “I don’t remember music ever not being part of my life.”

“I’m an 80s kid so I’d listen to Kylie but at the same aged I’d also be listening to Tosca and Wagner. I’d make mix tapes with my dad which would cover both pop music and classical, which is interesting because that’s kind of where I am now, mixing up the two different styles! I’m a Madonna and Mozart kind of girl.”

As a teenager, Myleene studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, adding harp to her repertoire, before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. After graduating, she worked as a session musician and singer, making her West End debut in Miss Saigon.

In 2000, she was picked from thousands of hopefuls to be one of the five members of the show’s manufactured group, Hear’Say. Their first single Pure and Simple entered the charts at number one and sold 1.2million copies.

In 2003 she signed a solo deal with Universal Classics and released her debut solo album, Moving On. It got to number two in the charts, went gold within weeks, and has since gone double platinum.

At this point, TV was starting to beckon to Myleene. She cut her teeth on a number of guest presenting roles before landing her first major job in 2005, presenting cult Saturday morning ITV show, cd:uk and interviewing all the big pop stars of the time.

July 2007 also saw Myleene return to music with a brand new deal with EMI Classics. She has released two albums: Myleene’s Music For Romance and Myleene’s Music For Mothers, both of which reached number one in the classical charts. Music also played a big part in her presenting roles which included Saturday Night Divas (ITV1) in 2007, Last Choir Standing (BBC1) Popstar To Operastar (ITV1) in 2010-11, and The Classical Brits (ITV1) from 2008-present.

Since 2006, Myleene has hosted a show on Classic FM and can currently be heard every Saturday and Sunday evening from 10pm to midnight. She says, “I’m all about taking classical music to the masses and letting a new audience know that classical music doesn’t have to be scary.”