Imogen Heap
Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap (/ˈɪmədʒən ˈhiːp/ IM-ə-jən HEEP; born 9 December 1977) is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music.
Imogen Heap
Imogen Jennifer Heap[1]
- Musician
- singer
- songwriter
- record producer
1995–present
1
- Vocals
- piano
- cello
- clarinet
- guitar
- drums
- array mbira
- Hang
- Almo Sounds
- Megaphonic
- RCA
Heap classically trained in piano, cello, and clarinet starting at a young age. She began writing songs at the age of 13 and, while attending boarding school, taught herself music production. After being discovered by manager Mickey Modern while attending the BRIT School, Heap signed to independent record label Almo Sounds at the age of 18 and later began working with experimental pop band Acacia. She released her debut album, an alternative rock record, I Megaphone, in 1998. In early 2002, Heap and English record producer Guy Sigsworth formed the electronic duo Frou Frou and released their only album to date, Details (2002).
Her second studio album, Speak for Yourself, was released in 2005 on her own label, Megaphonic Records, and was certified gold in the United States and Canada. The album spawned three singles: "Headlock", "Goodnight and Go", which became her highest-charting single as a lead artist on the UK Singles Chart, and "Hide and Seek", which was certified gold in the United States and gained popularity after being used in the Fox teen drama television series The O.C.. Heap's third studio album, Ellipse (2009), peaked in the top five of the Billboard 200 chart and received mostly positive reviews. This was followed by her fourth studio album, Sparks (2014). In 2017, she reunited with Sigsworth as part of Frou Frou.
Heap developed the Mi.Mu Gloves, a line of musical gloves, as well as a blockchain-based music-sharing program, Mycelia. She also composed the music for the West End/Broadway play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Over the course of her career, she has received two Grammy Awards, one Ivor Novello Award, and one Drama Desk Award. In July 2019, Heap was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.[2]
Early life[edit]
Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap[3] was born on 9 December 1977[4][5] in Havering, Greater London.[6] Her name was inspired by that of British composer Imogen Holst, as her mother wanted Heap to become a cellist like Holst.[7] She played music from an early age, first learning the piano due to "wanting attention" as a middle child and realizing, according to her, that "it was something [she] could make a lot of noise with".[8] She did not enjoy playing the music of classical composers such as Bach and Beethoven, and would instead attempt to play in their style to convince her parents she was practicing their music.[9] As a child, she began recording music by recording herself playing piano on cassette, then recording herself again singing over it.[10] She soon began taking lessons and became classically trained in several instruments including piano, cello and clarinet while attending Friends School, a private, Quaker-run boarding school in Saffron Walden.[11][12] At around age 10, she began composing Christmas carols for her school's choir.[9]
Due to being placed a year above children her age, Heap claims she did not get along with many people from the school and spent most of her time in the music room practising piano.[8] She stated, "In boarding school...I was mocked about the clothes I wore, the way I looked, whatever. People there really did regard me as some kind of freak from the middle of nowhere. And these things do matter a lot when you are sixteen, seventeen."[13] Heap's mother, an art therapist, and father, a construction rock retailer, separated when she was twelve years old.[14] Also at age twelve, she taught herself how to use Cubase on an Atari computer at Friends School.[8] By the age of thirteen, she had begun writing songs.[15][3] At age fifteen, she began using reel-to-reel recording to record her music, using a home computer to program the music.[10]
Personal life[edit]
Heap began dating film director Michael Lebor in 2012.[12] In June 2014, Heap announced in her video blog that she was pregnant with her first child with Lebor. She gave birth to their daughter later that year.[166]
Heap's sister, Juliet, died while abroad in November 2019.[61][94]