Hera Hjartardóttir
Encyclopedia
Hera is a singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 from Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 who now lives in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. She divides her time between her home in New Zealand and a regular European touring schedule. In 2002 she was named Best Female Singer at the Icelandic Music Awards.

A unique aspect of her performance is her facial art. She says it is "inspired by moko
Ta moko
Tā moko is the permanent body and face marking by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Traditionally it is distinct from tattoo and tatau in that the skin was carved by rather than punctured...

 and also by Celtic warrior paint
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

". It is intended to represent both her Icelandic and New Zealand heritage. The symbols represent aspects of her life and family, but their exact meanings she has chosen to keep secret.

Biography

Hera was born in Reykjavik
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

 but her family moved to Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 when she was 13. She started learning classical guitar
Classical guitar
The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

 at the age of 8, and then jazz guitar
Jazz guitar
The term jazz guitar may refer to either a type of guitar or to the variety of guitar playing styles used in the various genres which are commonly termed "jazz"...

 after a neighbour taught her how to play The Girl From Ipanema
The Girl from Ipanema
"Garota de Ipanema" is a well-known bossa nova song, a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel.The...

. Once she learned how to play and sing at the same time, she began writing her own songs. At 16 she released her first album Homemade, so named because it was recorded at home.

Two years later, Hera released her second independently produced album Not So Sweet and her career started to take off after a track from it, Itchy Palms, was chosen as the title track for the award winning Icelandic film Hafið (The Sea). The song resulted in her being nominated for two awards at the 2002 Icelandic Music Awards. She won for 'Best Female Singer', a category that had only ever been won by Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

 or Emilíana Torrini
Emilíana Torrini
Emilíana Torrini Davíðsdóttir is an Icelandic singer, best known for her 2009 single Jungle Drum, 1999 album Love in the Time of Science and for performing "Gollum's Song" for Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.-Early life:Torrini grew up in Kópavogur, where, at the age of...

 in the ten year history of the awards.

Her song Makebelieve from her third album Not Your Type! was a finalist in the 2002 USA Songwriting Competition, and became the third most played song on Icelandic National Radio in 2003. Her third and subsequent studio albums have been released on Icelandic record label Sena
Sena (record company)
Sena is an Icelandic company that is owned by 365 ljósvakamiðlar. It specializes in the distribution of music, movies and videos. Sena runs the Smárabíó, Regnboginn and Borgarbíó Akureyri movie theaters....

.

The year 2003 saw the release of her fourth studio album (and first Icelandic language recording) Hafið þennan dag. Since that time she has toured Iceland and Europe extensively and has opened for artists such as Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...

 and Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

.

Her fifth album Don't Play This was released in 2005 and the same year she played at the Glastonbury Music Festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...

. In 2007 she played her first gig
Gig (musical performance)
Gig is slang for a musical engagement in which musicians are hired. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word "engagement", now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance...

s in the United States including a performance at SXSW in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

.

Hera released her first live album in 2008 titled Live at AL's, recorded on 16 May 2008 at Christchurch music venue Al's Bar. In June of the same year, she began her 2008 European tour with a repeat trip to perform at Glastonbury. Hera's latest album, Rattle My Bones, was released on 15 June 2011.

Her song Feels So Good features on the Yike Bike promotional video.

Studio Albums

  • Homemade (1999)
  • Not So Sweet (2001)
  • Not Your Type! (2002)
  • Hafið þennan dag (2003). Achieved Gold status in Iceland in 2005.
  • Don't Play This (2005)
  • Rattle My Bones (2011)

Singles

  • Talað við gluggann (2003 - Iceland)
  • I Wanna Run (Live) (2004 - Iceland)
  • Feathers In A Bag (2005 - Iceland)
  • Feels So Good (2007 - Iceland)

Compilations

  • Ljósalagið (2003)
  • Íslensk ástarljóð (2003)
  • Stóra stundin okkar (2004)
  • Svona er sumarið 2005 (2005)
  • Svona er sumarið 2006 (2006)
  • Bubbi Morthens - 06.06.06 (2006)
  • Pældu í því sem pælandi er í (2006)
  • Óskalögin 10 (2006)
  • Ballöður (2007)
  • Ýmsir - 100 íslensk barnalög (2007)
  • 100 íslenskar ballöður (2009)
  • 100 íslensk í ferðalagið (2009)
  • 100 íslensk lög í fríið (2010)
  • 100 vinsæl barnalög (2010)
  • Það er bara þú (2011)

External links

  • Official website
  • Hera at Bandcamp
    Bandcamp
    Bandcamp is an online music store, as well as a platform for artist promotion, that caters mainly for independent artists. Artists on Bandcamp have a customizable microsite with the albums they upload. All tracks can be played for free on the website and some artists offer free music downloads...

  • Hera at Bebo
    Bebo
    Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....

  • Hera at YouTube
    YouTube
    YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

  • Tonlist.com Icelandic Music site
  • Hera podcasts at BigPod
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