Nolwenn Leroy

Nolwenn Le Magueresse (born 28 September 1982), known by her stage name Nolwenn Leroy, is a French singer-songwriter, musician and Actor.

Originally classically trained (violin and opera singing), she rose to fame after winning the second season of the French television music competition Star Academy in 2002. She has since recorded eight studio albums and scored two number one singles, "Cassé" and "Nolwenn Ohwo!", on the French charts. In 2012, her album Bretonne was certified two times diamond for sales exceeding one million copies.

Leroy is fluent in English, having spent a year in the US as an exchange student. She sings in many languages, including French, Breton, English and Irish.

Leroy has received numerous awards and nominations. In January 2015, she was ranked 17th on Le Journal du Dimanche's 50 Most Loved Celebrities in France, making her the top female singer on the list since December 2012. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 2021.

Leroy was born in Saint-Renan in 1982. Leroy's parents left Saint-Renan (Finistère) when she was four years old. After living in Paris, Lille, and Guingamp, her mother, Muriel Leroy, and her younger sister, Kay, settled with Leroy's grandparents in Saint-Yorre. Her mother divorced from her father, professional footballer Jean-Luc Le Magueresse, in 1993.

Nolwenn studied at the "Collège des Célestins" in Vichy. When Leroy was eleven, her music teacher noticed her musical talents and encouraged her to learn the violin. At the age of thirteen she won "Les écoles du désert", a contest sponsored by the Cora supermarket chain, which allowed her to travel with a humanitarian mission from Gao to Timbuktu, Mali; she later claimed this had a profound influence on her.