20-year old, Victoria Hart has affectionately become known as the “Singing Waitress”, following her much reported Cannes concert, entertaining George Clooney, Brad Pitt and the cast of ‘Oceans’.

She was originally discovered by Producer/Songwriter Geoff Gurd when he heard the young singer perform at a jazz picnic in the South of France when she was just 15. Following this chance meeting they started writing and recording together whilst Victoria attended Vocal college. To earn her keep Victoria also worked as a waitress in a small restaurant near London – singing jazz standards in between courses!

Victoria was born in 1988 in Orange County, California. Her parents separated when she was very young and Victoria spent a lot of time in Chicago with her grandmother who had in her time been a model with a huge interest in fashion and jazz. It was here that Victoria’s love of the 40’s music and clothes developed and she would regularly dress up in her grandmother’s retro wardrobe and sing along to the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald and Doris Day.

During this time her mother met a great English man whom she fell in love with and married and the family including Victoria’s older and younger sisters moved to the UK where they lived for five years.

They then packed up and moved to the South of France where Victoria embraced the French culture and became fluent in the language. It was here she took her GCSE’s on the understanding with her parents that if she did really well she could go to music college in London.

This spurred her on to get straight As and when her family moved back to New York, Victoria aged 16 went off to London to follow her dream. She lived with a family friend, went to Vocal Tech, worked as a singing waitress and started to learn her craft.

Victoria and Geoff worked together, writing and recording - enjoying the journey of experimentation and discovery of a style of music she has made her own. The result of this collaboration was recorded on her debut album ‘Whatever Happened To Romance’ – released by Universal/Decca in July 2007.

Just one year on from her success at the Ocean’s 13 party, Victoria again performed for celebrities such as Goldie Hawn and Mischa Barton at the Cannes Film Festival by entertaining them on-board another yacht, this year hosted by Margarita Missoni.

In June, Victoria was asked to join Russell Watson as his special guest on the 2008 UK tour. She was invited to sing two solos of her own, backed by Russell’s orchestra, as well as a duet with Russell himself.

Following the tour, Victoria was back in the recording studio working on her second album ‘The Lost Gershwin’. The project was based on rare Gershwin gems contained in 40s sheet music discovered in an attic. She went to New York for conversations with the Gershwin family and was given permission to search through original Gershwin manuscripts at the Library of Congress in Washington. This album was released on the 27th October 2008.

Victoria has appeared at a raft of high profile live events including Glastonbury, John Galliano’s V&A; Ball, the legendary Ronnie Scotts and numerous jazz festivals. This has been combined with increased stage, radio and TV work, including two recent appearance on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ chatting to Fern Britten and Paul Schofield about her new album and making meringues with TV Chef Phil Vickery!

Her quirkiness, happy personality and distinctive sense of style attract frequent press coverage. Victoria freely admits she is not a double-zero size and actually loves her ‘Monroe-type figure’. She has been described as a ‘great ambassador for curves’!

Victoria participated in the new theatrical musical based on the life story of Anthony Newley which was premiered in November last year. And as a contribution to the annual ‘Children in Need’ event, Sir Terry Wogan announced an unusual auction item ‘Be Immortalised’, wherein Victoria offers a day in the studio to record a duet with the successful bidder, including a UK general release of the single.

The next solo album due out in Spring 2009 promises to be a progressive but natural development. As Victoria says “I was 16-years old when I started working on my debut album. I’m now an old woman of 20 - with new ideas, a stronger voice and an experimental nature. I’m having lots of fun pushing the boundaries of swing, jazz and blues – the music I’m known for – although I prefer not to be pigeonholed. I regard myself as a pop singer taking influences from every genre of music, in particular the swing era of the 40s and 50s”.
“Crossover means constant experimentation and working hard at developing my style. I love hard work and I want to be around for the long haul, not here and gone in a flash.”

Nowhere is Victoria happier than performing live in front of a crowd. It doesn’t matter to her whether it is a roomful of people at an intimate jazz club or an audience of three thousand at the Royal Festival Hall. She gives it all she’s got and a Hart performance is never less than memorable.

To meet Victoria Hart in person is to discover what all the fuss is about. As Sir David Frost said at rehearsals of Through the Keyhole: “Victoria lights up a room when she walks in”.

Likewise Russell Watson regularly introduced Victoria as “a great character, a fantastic voice and a star of the future”.