Brooke Fraser
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Brooke Gabrielle Fraser (born December 15, 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter. She is also one of the main worship leaders of popular Christian praise and worship band Hillsong United.
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Biography
Early life
Brooke is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black, Bernie Fraser and his wife Lynda Fraser. She is second cousin to Kyle 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 sixteen. Notably, Brooke has never taken any singing lessons.
She received some label interest when she was fifteen, but instead preferred to focus on getting an A bursary, a school leaver's award. She nevertheless performed at Parachute, an annual Christian 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.<ref>Sunday Star-Times article regarding Fraser's career, religious views and involvement with Soul Purpose.</ref>
Record deal
In 2002 while Brooke was in Auckland Scotty, 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
Template:Main 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 <ref name=wtdwdchart>The RIANZ Chart indicates the chart run for What To Do With Daylight.</ref>. 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 only with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie<ref>2004 Performance details</ref>. Following this, Fraser set out with her band for her own What To Do With Daylight Tour. Australian Engineer, Gareth Stuckey was enlisted to mix Front of House sound, and has done so since. 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.
Albertine
Template:Main 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," written about a young child (named Albertine) who 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<ref name=brookesband>The NewsTours Page on Fraser's website indicates her band's history.</ref>. 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 December 4, 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status in 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 March 31 2007. In Australia, it charted at #29 in its first week on April 9.
On April 6 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.
Hillsong United
In 2006, Brooke joined Hilllsong United on stage at their yearly Encourterfest Event to lead the congregation in a worship song she wrote called "None But Jesus." Fraser joined the band full time the next year as one of it's worship leaders and has contributed to both the United Series of albums as well as the Hillsong Live albums.
Personal life
After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney in order to better poise herself for her career. She still resides there. Fraser attends Hillsong Church. She is a worship leader and collaborator on the Hillsong United series of worship albums<ref>Praise-Him.org details the Hillsong United lineup for United We Stand.</ref>. She is a Christian and much of her lyrical content indicates this, as well as her continued participation in Christian and church events<ref>NZ Girl article confirming Fraser's Christianity and other facts about Fraser.</ref>. She married Scott Ligertwood on March 17, 2008.
Charity Work
Fraser has, since 2005, been the public face of World Vision in New Zealand. She has visited Cambodia and Tanzania with World Vision, the Philippines with Opportunity International and independently travelled to Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and is due to visit in May 2007Template:Fact. She released a song and album in late 2006 called Albertine. The song was inspired by her time in Rwanda<ref>Fraser Blogs her trip to Africa and how it inspired her to write the song "Albertine".</ref>. 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.
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"
- With Hearts As One (2008)
- "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
Fraser was also awarded a satirical award:
- The most used fairy lights in a video clip (for "Arithmetic") - Studio 2 Awards (2004)
