Queen of sophisticated pop Sophie Ellis-Bextor to grace Tashkent Art Week

September 25, 2012

On October 4, famous British singer and songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor will perform at Tashkent’s Palace of International Forums as part of Style.Uz Art Week 2012 following the opening ceremony for the week-long art-laden spectacular. The chart-topping disco diva, whose music balances crisply dance rhythms with 80s soul and pop dynamics, is set to add pizzazz to the major culture and art event.

Ellis Bextor, who describes her music as “sophisticated pop”, has developed a large following thanks to her deep velvety voice, striking looks and innate sense of style. She is not much of a dancer, so her usual performance style is just to stand around looking classy and sophisticated. It therefore stands to reason that Ellis-Bexter is compared with the young Audrey Hepburn. She auditioned for the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge! for the part of Satine, but opted to concentrate on her music career instead.

Ellis-Bextor was born in 1979 in London to Robin Bextor, an award-winning film director, and Janet Ellis, then an actress, but later better known as a presenter on the TV series Blue Peter (on which Sophie appeared with her mother at the age of six, modeling snoods). Her parents divorced when Sophie was four years old. She has three sisters and two brothers. She has often spoken about being very close to her family growing up. By 16, her love of Madonna and Michael Jackson had been swapped by Britpop as Sophie hung out at West End clubs in London.

She first came to prominence in the late 1990s, as the lead singer of the indie rock band Theaudience. After the group disbanded, Ellis-Bextor went solo, achieving widespread success in the early 2000s. In 2000, Ellis-Bextor collaborated with Italian DJ Spiller on adding vocals to his then-instrumental club track “Groovejet”, her first recorded work since that with Theaudience. “Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)” entered the U.K. charts at No. 1, just beating former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham on her first solo outing to the top spot. Since then, the two have been described as rivals. Both women deny, however, that there is any rivalry between the two of them. “Groovejet” won several awards: No. 1, Pop Top 20; No. 1, ILR; No. 1, Radio 1; No. 8, top dance track of 2000 and single of the year in Melody Maker.

A year later Ellis-Bextor released her debut album, Read My Lips. It reached No. 2 on the UK charts and spawned four top-twenty hit singles. Her rework of Cher’s “Take Me Home” reached No. 2, as did “Murder on the Dancefloor”, which became Ellis-Bextor’s biggest single to date and was on charts for twenty-three weeks. “Murder on the Dancefloor” became Europe’s most played song of 2002. In 2002, Read My Lips was re-released with two new songs (and a live version of “Groovejet”) and Ellis-Bextor won the Recording Artist Award at that year’s Showbusiness Awards. Her third single, “Get Over You” / “Move This Mountain” was released in June 2002 and reached No. 3. At the beginning of 2002, Ellis-Bextor was nominated for the “British Female Solo Artist” BRIT Award, going on to be nominated for a further two consecutive years.

In 2004, she released her second album, Shoot from the Hip. Although it was not as commercially successful as her previous material, it held two further top-ten singles. Her third album, Trip the Light Fantastic, was released in May 2007 and debuted at number seven on the UK Albums Chart. In an interview, Sophie said she had written over 70 songs for the album, but only 12 ended up in the album. Before the album, two singles were released: “Catch You”, which charted in the UK at number eight, and “Me and My Imagination” at number twenty-three. Trip the Light Fantastic was certified Gold in July 2008, for selling 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

Ellis-Bextor's fourth album, Make a Scene, was released in June 2011. The first single from the album, “Bittersweet” (co-written by Freemasons and Hannah Robinson), was released in May 2010 and reached number twenty-five on the UK Singles Chart. “Not Giving Up on Love” was released as the second single from the album in August 2010, followed by “Starlight” as the third single in May 2011. “Off & On” was the fourth and final single.

In May 2011, Ellis-Bextor revealed that she had already begun work on her fifth album. She returned to the international tour scene in 2011, performing in Indonesia and Australia.

Ellis-Bextor is a loving mother of three sons, a successful business lady and a philanthropist. Combining family life with a high-profile music career doesn't seem to pose any problems for the proud mum. Be it indie rock or dance pop, she always remains original, classy and popular.

Carrying on with its tradition of supporting culture and arts as well as young talents in Uzbekistan, Fund Forum presents another opportunity for students and talented youths to draw inspiration from world-famous big-name celebrities strutting their stuff at venues in Uzbekistan. The upcoming concerts by Chris Botti (September 26), Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and Demis Roussos (October 9) to be held as part of this year’s Style.Uz Art Week have a charitable character, with over 500 tickets slated to be distributed free of charge among young talented musicians, artists, students and designers in Uzbekistan.