Alexandra Burke Biography
Summary
"Alexandra Imelda Cecelia Ewan Burke" (born 25 August, 1988) is a British R&B/pop singer and winner of the fifth series of UK television talent show "The X Factor". She is the second female winner after fellow Londoner and now global recording artist, Leona Lewis. Alexandra had previously auditioned for the 2005 series of the show, where she reached the last seven in her category but was not selected for the live shows.
As a result of her "X Factor" victory, Alexandra receives a £1 million recording contract; she will also sing in The O2 arena] on New Year's Eve alongside Elton John.
Early life
Alexandra Burke was born on 25 August, 1988 in Islington, London and was named after her grandfather and great grandmother. Before her "X Factor" success, Burke had been working as a singer, gigging at weekends in clubs. She is the daughter of ex-Soul II Soul singer Melissa Bell.
Burke started singing when she was just 5 and prior to X-Factor had no professional vocal training. At 9 years old she sang on stage in Bahrain with her mother, one of the singers from 'Soul II Soul'. At the age of 12 years Burke entered 'Star for a Night' where she was the youngest person in the competition, but was beaten to the no.1 spot by Joss Stone. She left school after her GCSEs to pursue a career in music.
When Burke's mum asked her to sing to Jean Carne, Jean was so impressed she asked her to perform at her show the next night and at 12 she sung down the phone to Stevie Wonder. Burke recently went on tour with 'Young Voices' a charity that raises money for children with Leukaemia where she has performed at huge venues like The Royal Albert Hall.
Burke has lived in Islington all of her life and has 4 brothers and 1 sister. When she was 5 years old her parents split up.
"The X Factor"
Burke auditioned for the second series of The X Factor in 2005. She made it through to the final seven in Louis Walsh's 16-24 category; however, Walsh did not choose her for his final four, as he felt that she was too young for the competition.
Burke's second bid to win "The X Factor" came in 2008. Falling into the 'Girls' category, she was mentored by Cheryl Cole who selected her for the finals - a series of ten weekly live shows in which contestants are progessively eliminated by public vote.
On the first live show, Burke performed the Whitney Houston classic, 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody'. For the second live show she covered 'I'll Be There' by The Jackson Five and was again criticised by judge Simon Cowell, who called her a copycat. In week three, Big Band week, Burke performed 'Candyman', a Christina Aguilera song, and received her first standing ovation. For the disco-themed fourth live show, Alexandra performed the Donna Summer song, 'On the Radio'. During Mariah Carey week on 8 November, Alexandra Burke and the other finalists met Mariah Carey for individual masterclasses, with Carey complimenting Burke on her voice. Alexandra Burke performed 'Without You' and received a standing ovation from the judges who all gave her positive comments. Simon Cowell commented that 'by any standard, that was just outstanding'. Following the show Burke's performance was praised by Carey who called her rendition of the song 'absolutely amazing'.
In weeks 6 and 7, Burke received positive comments from the judging panel for her performances of Joe Cocker's 'You Are So Beautiful' and Take That's 'Relight My Fire'. Week 8 saw her replace Diana Vickers as the bookies' favourite after performing Britney Spears' 'Toxic' and Beyoncé's 'Listen', for which she received yet another standing ovation. In week 9, Burke performed Rihanna's hit song 'Don't Stop The Music' and again received positive comments, with Louis calling her 'the British Beyoncé' and Simon commenting '...We may be seeing the birth of a star here ... you've got it all, that was a great performance'. Diana Vickers was eliminated in the semi-final.
Alexandra Burke was joined in the grand final by Irish teenager Eoghan Quigg and boyband JLS. She sang 'Listen' as a duet with Beyoncé, and after performing with the American singer proclaimed, 'I have achieved a dream'. After the elimination of Eoghan Quigg she sang what would become her debut single, a Leonard Cohen penned song 'Hallelujah', for the first time. Finally, with over 8 million votes cast in total, Alexandra was revealed as the winner with 58% of the final vote. It was announced on Radio One on Sunday 14th December that Alexandra recieve 1million more votes than 2nd place Jls. Later on The Xtra Factor she revealed that Beyoncé agree to her supporting her on up and coming concert tour and duet with her. Simon Cowell announced before the final that 500,000 preorders of the winners single has already been made.
Post-"X Factor"
U.S. rapper 50 Cent has expressed an interest in Burke, correctly predicting that she would win "The X Factor" and going as far as saying he would like her to appear in his upcoming video, most likely for a song from his upcoming album "Before I Self Destruct".
After their duet of Listen on X-Factor, Alexandra Burke claimed on the Xtra Factor that Beyonce expressed an interest in having Burke join her as a support act on her British tour and even to possibly record a duet together. It is also rumoured that Burke will record a duet with Girls Aloud, due to her links with Cheryl Cole.
Burke appeared on the BBC Chart Show on Radio 1 the day following her X Factor victory, and host Fearne Cotton announced she had earlier that day filmed a performance to be shown on the Top of the Pops christmas special.
According to Play.com and HMV, Burke's debut album will be released March 16, 2009. Also According to Amazon U.K. the debut album will be available as a limited 2 disc edition also released March 16, 2009.
External links
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Alexandra Burke.
