At the age of 29 Katherine Jenkins is already one of the classical world’s brightest stars. Interview by Simon Evans.

Katherine Jenkins is one of a new breed of classical musican, enjoying the kind of mainstream recognition and chart success that was previously the preserve of pop stars.

Katherine is, however, as far as it is possible to be from the plastic world of pop. Success has come quickly – at the age of 26 she had the top four albums in the classical album charts, a feat that has yet to be equalled – but she remains
unaffected by the acclaim and attention.

“Most of the time I’m just swept along by it all, and I’m thankful for that because if I do stop I might find it all a bit overwhelming. To be honest I still can’t believe that all this is happening to me.

“There are moments when I think to myself ‘Oh gosh, how did this happen to me?’ It happened in the summer when I was singing with Andrea Bocelli on one side of me and Placido Domingo on the other side. We were all singing together, with my mum sitting in the audience, and it was just an amazing experience.”

The high media profile she enjoys involves a lot of hard work; a seemingly endless routine of recording, promotion and touring. Katherine takes it all with good grace however.

“Well, it helps that I love what I do,” she says. “When I am tired and jet-lagged, and missing my friends and my family I have to remember the amazing opportunity I have here, and that’s what keeps me going.”

“I have to stay and fit and healthy as best I can to cope with it all. I tend to go for long periods without drinking alcohol, and then I’ll have a few glasses when I know I can enjoy it. I eat well, I’m a vegetarian, and I run, so I have to be disciplined. The bottom line is I never want to let anyone down and not give my very best.” Katherine’s new album, Believe, is her seventh in six years, and her first for her new label, Warner Brothers. It was recorded earlier this year in Los Angeles under the watchful eye of producer and arranger David Foster, who has worked with the likes of Seal, Josh Groban and Michael Bublé, but is perhaps best known for his work with Whitney Houston on the soundtrack to the film The Bodyguard.

“It’s the album I always wanted to make,” Katherine says. “It’s been quite a long process but it’s really exciting to finally have it completed. When David is creating a track he is always looking to excite people. Although this is a classical album we were thinking about those moments that would get people at a concert to want to stand up and clap. It’s about making everything bigger, on a kind of Hollywood scale.”

Instead of choosing the songs she was going to record prior to going into the studio, Katherine and David started with an empty slate. “When I turned up on the first day we had no idea what I was going to record, so it was all very organic. We would sit around and talk about songs we loved, artists that we liked and then brainstorm. David would sit at the piano and wander through keys, conjuring up arrangements right in front of me.

“I feel much more involved in the album, and much more passionate about it because of that.

“Tracks on Believe range from Bring Me To Life, originally recorded by the rock band Evanescence and the theme from The Godfather to Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry and the more classically-inclined pieces Ancora and La Califfa.

“I wanted people who had bought my albums before to realise that it is still me singing songs that I love, and it’s still a classically-styled album,” Katherine explains,  “but I also wanted there to be a few things on there that are unexpected.”

The album also features collaborations with Andrea Bocelli, and legendary jazz trumpeter Chris Botti. The Bocelli duet, I Believe, is one of Katherine’s favourites. “It made me cry when I first heard that track, it’s so beautiful.”

With Bring Me To Life being a rock track we  opted to make it percussive, but using strings to get that effect instead of drums. I was a bit nervous about it and played the track to my mum because she would let me know if I’d gone too far, but she loved it, so that was my benchmark.”

Katherine was born in Neath, South Wales and enjoyed an idyllic childhood until the death of her father, Selwyn, of lung cancer while she was in the throes of her GCSEs. His death naturally devastated Katherine but made her doubly
determined to pursue a career in music.

She had won a music competition at the age of four and three years later joined the choir of her local church, In 1991, aged 11, she won the Welsh Choirgirl of the Year competition. She was a member of the Royal School of Church Music Cathedral Singers, the National Youth Choir of Wales before, at the age of 17, winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music.

After graduating with honours she mixed teaching singing with modelling before deciding to focus on a singing career. One of her demo tapes reached the Universal Classics and Jazz label, who called her in for an auditon. An hour later she had been offered an unprecedented six-album deal, reportedly the most lucrative classical recording contract in history. All this at the age of 23 – and that was just the beginning.

Her first album, Premier, topped the classical charts for eight weeks while her fifth album, Rejoice, released in November 2007, entered the pop album charts at Number Three, ahead of Take That and the Spice Girls.

“It was never a conscious decision to reach out to a pop audience,” Katherine says, “but with touring I’ve learned to know what audiences want, listened to their requests and taken those things on board. It’s like I’ve been making the albums for them. I want to appeal to people who wouldn’t normally buy classical albums.”

In the six years since being signed up by Universal Katherine has performed at Pope John Paul’s silver jubilee in Westminster Cathedral, sung the Welsh National Anthem at international rugby matches and the 2008 FA Cup Final and even found time to appear in two episodes of Emmerdale. More recently she has performed at the Last Night of the Proms, the first Ashes Test and on the TV show Strictly Come Dancing.

Then, in March, she will kick off her first arena tour, performing with an orchestra and a small choir. “It’s going to be more of a performance than just a concert. There will be a strong theatrical element to it,” Katherine explains.

She has also been adopted as an unofficial forces sweetheart, performing at the Festival of Remembrance at the Albert Hall, the 2005 VE Day anniversary concert and visiting Iraq. During her first visit the truck that Katherine was travelling in was fired at by ground to air missiles. Undeterred she has since been back, and has also visited troops in Afghanistan. This month she is also launching a fund-raising campaign for the British Forces Foundation.

“It’s something that is very important to me,” Katherine says. “There are moments when it’s frightening, like when we were attacked in Iraq, but that doesn’t matter. Visiting the troops is a way of showing support for the men and women serving out there.”

With a new record company behind her Katherine feels the release of Believe marks the beginning of a new chapter in her career

“I’ve made six albums and it’s easy to get into a rut. Now I feel I have a new challenge and I’m going to countries, like America, where I’m starting from scratch and they don’t know me. It’s taking me back to the beginning, and having to
start again. Some people would be frightened by that, but I find it exciting.”

Believe is released by Warner Brothers.