Born in Bergen on 24 June 1969, Sissel Kyrkjebø (widely known as Sissel) started singing early, and by the age of 9 she had already joined her first choir. In 1984, 14-year-old Sissel was making her television debut on the NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), and later that year she met Rune Larsen, who would eventually become her personal manager. In May 1986 Sissel performed live from Grieghallen in Bergen during the intermission of the Eurovision Song Contest – a performance watched by millions, and Sissel’s first taste of international fame. In October that year, she released her first album, which sold over 300,000 copies, a record for Norway. Two months later, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet selected Sissel as ‘The Name of the Year’, and the following year, not 18 yet, Sissel received the prestigious Årets Spelleman, the Norwegian equivalent of a Grammy Award. A star was born.
Sissel has since then lived up to her earlier promise, and is widely recognised as one of Norway’s foremost artists. Highlights of her career include singing the Olympic Hymn at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer; duets with stars such as Plácido Domingo, Charles Aznavour, José Carreras, and Dee Dee Bridgewater, among others; and her participation on the Titanic film soundtrack. Sissel received her first Grammy nominations in 2007 for a collaboration with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Her combined solo record sales (not including soundtracks and other albums to which she contributed) amount to 10 million albums, most of them sold in Norway, a country with 4.7 million people. More info about Sissel at www.sissel.net