Shena Winchester

Shena's musical success began when her school music teacher had such faith in her vocal talents that she persuaded the headmaster to fund professional singing lessons for her. Whilst studying for her A-Levels however the enthusiasm from her new tutor was less than inspirational, however being told that “the best she would ever become was a secretary” only drove self-motivated Shena, who went on to gain a place at the Royal Academy with an unconditional offer after stunning everyone at her audition with her mature rendition of an aria from Porgy and Bess.

Through connections made whilst at the Royal Academy after graduating with honours, she was given her big break - singing with Michael Ball. Since then she has continued to undertake session work throughout her 14 year career including working with prolific artists such as Luther Vandross, Errol Brown, Angie Stone, Heather Small, Chaka Khan, James Brown, Lesley Garrett, Danni Minogue, Lemar and Russell Watson amongst others. Her CV certainly reads like a musical A-Z, spanning genres from Classical to Pop, Soul to Dance, conveying her artistic versatility.

Her biggest hit to date, The Weekend, which she sang live on the last ever episode of Top Of The Pops and reached No.7 in the UK Charts, launched her international career after the track was nominated for a Grammy. Recently the song has been brought to the forefront everyone's attention once more after being played during a recent episode of Channel 4's Ugly Betty.

Alongside performances on top UK music TV shows like Popworld, CDUK and key UK music channels, Shena's voice has been heard by millions on TV advertising campaigns for top brands such as Coca Cola, KFC, Nissan, Centre Parcs, Jaguar, Guinness and Kodak to name but a few. She has also lent her vocals to over 21 hit tracks! These include collaborations with De Souza, Alex Gaudino and with Junior Jack which gained her a UK Top 20 hit with ‘Dare Me' in 2007.

With all-round performance skills, Shena has toured Japan starring in the hit musical ‘Carmen Jones', as well as adplaying key roles in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar', ‘What A Feeling', ‘Mama, I Want To Sing', ‘It's A Kinda Magic' and appearing as Crystal in ‘Little Shop Of Horrors'. It doesn't just stop at singing and acting for Shena, who has penned hits for both Javine and Lemar in the past. She has drawn on her life experiences to write unique tracks for her debut album, due for release in Summer 2008.