Katherine Jenkins - Home Sweet Home [Deluxe] (2015)

Katherine Jenkins is classified as a lyric mezzo. This is album is the first one to showcase the beautiful lower range of her voice. If you love Jenkins' high notes, they are there too. But it seems as if she has taken great care to avoid belting out the high notes. Instead she sings with a softer touch that often makes her voice sound, at the same time, delicate and confident. Her beautiful voice still soars; it's just more like a dove than an eagle.

While still in her mid-twenties, Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins emerged as Britain's all-time best-selling classical artist, although critics charged her success was more a result of physical beauty than musical talent. Born June 29, 1980, in Neath, West Glamorgan, Wales, Jenkins fell under the sway of classical music at age seven, studying piano and singing in her local choir throughout childhood. In 1990, she joined the Royal School of Church Music Cathedral Singers and also served with the National Youth Choir of Wales.

At 17, Jenkins was accepted into London's Royal Academy of Music, tackling a series of operatic roles while studying Italian, German, French, and Russian. She continued pursuing opera as a postgraduate while moonlighting as a vocal instructor, but upon winning the Face of Wales modeling contest she instead supplemented her income as a fashion model. In 2003, Universal Classics signed Jenkins to a six-album, seven-figure recording contract, reputedly the largest classical deal in U.K. music industry history. While at work on her debut LP, she performed at Westminster Cathedral in honor of Pope John Paul II and also made her inaugural appearance at the famed Sydney Opera House. Issued in the spring of 2004, Jenkins' debut, Premiere, immediately topped the classical music charts, and its success inspired a quickie follow-up, Second Nature. Together the albums vaulted the singer to a level of commercial success previously unknown in classical music circles, and she further exploited her growing mainstream popularity by recording a classical rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" for 2005's Living a Dream. Serenade topped both the U.K. classical and album charts in 2006, as did Rejoice the following year. Sacred Arias (2008) represented her last album for Universal before transitioning to Warner Bros. for the more contemporary Believe (2009) and Daydream (2011). The following year Jenkins released her first official holiday album, This Is Christmas.

Tracklist:

01. Ode to Joy (feat. David Garrett)
02. Segreti (One Republic’s “Secrets”)
03. Barcelona
04. Dreaming of the Days (Vocal Version of Einaudi’s “I Giorni”)
05. How Great Thou Art
06. Sanctus (Vocal Version of Elgar’s “Nimrod” from the Enigma Variations)
07. Home! Sweet Home!
08. Anthem (From “Chess”)
09. We Are the Champions
10. 8 Nights of Joy
11. Silent Night
12. The Moon Represents My Heart
13. World in Union
14. We’ll Gather Lilacs (From “Perchance to Dream”)
15. Remember (Based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations)
16. Land of My Fathers