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Brooke Gabrielle Fraser (born 15 December 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter. She is also one of the principal worship leaders of the Christian worship band Hillsong United and, more recently, Hillsong.

Biography

Early life

Brooke is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black, Bernie Fraser and his wife Lynda Fraser. Brooke grew up in Naenae, Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School then Naenae Intermediate and Naenae College.

Brooke started taking piano lessons at seven years of age, continuing until seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the acoustic guitar at fifteen. Notably, she has never taken any singing lessons.

She performed at Parachute, an annual New Zealand music festival, and has continued to do so each year since 2000 - including a special guest performance in 2007.

Brooke was a presenter on a cable television show. She began writing for the Soul Purpose magazine at age fifteen and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.

Record deal

In 2002, while Brooke was in Auckland, Scotty Pearson, the drummer for Elemeno P, organized a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interest and compared their offers. Brooke had about five different labels offering her deals, and in late 2002 she ended up signing a multi-album deal with Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand.

What To Do With Daylight

Brooke's first album What to Do with Daylight was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at #1 and achieved gold-selling status in the same week. The album eventually went 7 times platinum, selling over 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone. She remained on the album charts for a record 66 weeks. All five singles from her album reached the top 20 RIANZ charts, the official singles chart of New Zealand. Her album was the second best selling NZ album of 2004 (behind Hayley Westenra's Pure which went 11 times platinum).

Following the release of What to Do with Daylight, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with American artist John Mayer and then toured New Zealand with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie. Following this, Fraser set out with her band for her own What to Do with Daylight Tour. Included amongst these live appearances, Fraser made several public and television appearances. Whilst on tour with John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album Heavier Things, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.

What to Do with Daylight was also re-released as a two disc "Special Edition" following the albums success.

Albertine

In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she wrote the song "Albertine" about a young child (named Albertine), whom she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.

For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded. In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in Los Angeles to record the album. Later, Fraser also allowed her MySpace page to give visitors a listen to the album's first single "Deciphering Me," which was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single, and achieved #4 in the New Zealand single charts.

On 4 December 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status less than a month after its release and has remained, to date, in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on 31 March 2007. In Australia, it charted at #29 in its first week on 9 April.

On 6 April 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

In 2008, Fraser appeared on the Dave Barnes song "Believe" from his album Me + You + the World, performing backing vocals.

Albertine was also Brooke's U.S. debut, released 27 May 2008 and entered the Billboard 200 at #90 on 19 July 2008. Her album propelled in success with online sales after being chosen as Editor's Choice on iTunes. It reached #5 on the iTunes charts and #4 on the Christian and gospel albums list during the week ended July 6. In August she toured the southern U.S.

Personal life

After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney, where she has lived for four years. She commutes to the U.S. for touring. Fraser attends Hillsong Church; she is a worship leader and collaborator on the Hillsong United series of worship albums. She is a Christian, and much of her lyrical content indicates this, as well as her continued participation in Christian and church events. On March 17th 2008 she married musician Scott Ligertwood in Sydney.

Charity Work

Fraser has been a World Vision Artist Associate since 2001. She has visited Cambodia and Tanzania with World Vision, the Philippines with Opportunity International and independently traveled to Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and in May 2007 when she filmed the music video for the song "Albertine". In 2006 she, along with Petra Bagust and Tau from Spacifix, appeared advertising the World Vision 40 Hour Famine; an event which raises funds for children in third world countries. She also sponsors a number of children through World Vision.

Discography

Albums

• 2003: What to Do with Daylight
• 2006: Albertine

Singles

Songs with Hillsong

Songs written or co-written by Brooke Fraser with Hillsong and Hillsong United include:

• United We Stand (2006)
  • "None But Jesus"
  • "Revolution" with Scott Ligertwood, Joel Houston, Marty Sampson, & Michael Guy Chislett
• Mighty to Save (2006)
  • "None But Jesus"
• All of the Above (2007)
  • "Lead Me To The Cross"
  • "Hosanna"
• Saviour King (2007)
  • "Hosanna"
  • "Lord Of Lords"
• The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One (2008)
  • "You'll Come"
  • "Hosanna"
  • "None But Jesus"
• This Is Our God (2008)
  • "Desert Song"
  • "You'll Come"

Awards

• Most promising Woman Musician Award & Overall winner - 1999 Hutt Valley Pepsi Smokefree Rockquest regional finals
• Best Female Solo Artist: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
• Breakthrough Artist of the Year: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
• Most Performed Work on NZ radio in the Last 12 Months: Better - Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2004
• Australasian Performing Right Association's Silver Scroll: Albertine - Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2007
• The Warehouse Highest Selling Album: Albertine - 2007 NZ Music Awards
• NZ on Air Airplay Record of the Year: Deciphering Me - 2007 NZ Music Awards
• Editor's Music Choice Award: Albertine - iTunes

Fraser was also awarded a satirical award:

• The most used fairy lights in a video clip (for "Arithmetic") - Studio 2 Awards (2004)

Notes

1. Sunday Star-Times article regarding Fraser's music career, personal views, and involvement with Soul Purpose.
2. The RIANZ Chart indicates the chart run for What to Do with Daylight.
3. 2004 Performance details
4. The NewsTours Page on Fraser's website indicates her band's history.
5. "Brooke Fraser puts a Kiwi note into US charts". New Zealand Herald. 2008-07-21. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
6. Praise-Him.org details the Hillsong United lineup for United We Stand.
7. NZ Girl article confirming Fraser's Christianity and other facts about Fraser.
8. Pointer to NZ Girl
9. charts.org.nz - New Zealand charts portal
10. R&R Christian CHR chart

External links

• Official Brooke Fraser Website
• Brooke Fraser Music Fan Site
• Official MySpace
• Brooke Fraser Fansite
• Brooke Fraser LiveJournal Community
• Brooke Fraser Last.fm Group
• Interview with Brooke on WHO.com
• Interview with Brooke on My Crazy Music Blog

• Articles needing cleanup from August 2008
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from August 2008
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from August 2008
• 1983 births
• Living people
• New Zealand singer-songwriters
• New Zealand pop singers
• New Zealand Pentecostals
• Performers of Christian music
• Christian songwriters
• Hillsong musicians