
Well, thanks to the new modern marvel that is Youtube, people are able to upload essentially anything they want to; whether it is flagged as obscene is another story. Still, it is a wondeful source for music and such, especially concerts. Ignoring the legality or rather illegality (if that's a word) of the uploaded videos I stumbled across an interesting concert of Hayley Westenra. Some may be saying Hayley who, which is understandable considering her only American appearance has been on PBS. It truely is a shame, considering her magnificent voice, which she also uses for performing with Celtic Women, also on PBS.
The concert on Youtube comes from her Live in New Zealand DVD, after all she is from New Zealand, so it is only fitting that she performs there. Though it is difficult to actually watch the concert in proper order on the site, it is not difficult to see how vocally talented she is. Some of the songs she takes on include "Down to the River to Pray," "Wuthering Heights," and "I Dreamed a Dream." True, she does not sound like the original exactly for either of the songs, but she does put her own style into it. Surprisingly, the least impressive out of them all is "I Dreamed a Dream," but that may be because the other versions are sung by older women with a better understanding of how to convey the emotion of the song (and no, I am most definitely not referring to Susan Boyle, more like a reference to Ruthie Henshall).
For being only 17 in the concert, Hayley shows how much talent is yet to come from her. Though it is a different genre, she still makes many American pop artists look really bad, which makes it quite sad that she has very little popularity in America. Regardless, the concert is definitely worth checking out, and can be purchased on many websites (and yes, they are American ones).

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