Short Biography

Lara Fabian (born Lara Crokaert January 9, 1970 in Etterbeek, Belgium) is an international Belgian-Italian singer, known for her vocal prowess and skilled technique. She sings in Italian, Spanish, and English in addition to French, all of which she is fluent in. She has also sung in Portuguese, and once in German back in 1988 for a German version of "Croire" ("Glaub"), although she speaks neither language fluently. She also speaks a little Dutch (Flemish). She has sold over 12 million records worldwide so far. She became a Canadian citizen in 1994 at the time she began her career in Québec.

Lara was born to a Flemish father and a Sicilian mother. Her name comes from her parents` inspiration of the theme song of the film Doctor Zhivago. Although born in Etterbeek (Belgium), she spent her first five years in her mother`s hometown of Catania in Sicily, learning Italian as a first language, before moving back to Belgium, in Brussels. Lara began singing, dancing, and taking piano lessons at a very young age and began formal music lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels at age eight. Lara began writing and performing her own songs during her ten years study at the conservatory. Lara studied to be a lawyer before pursuing a full-time career in music. Lara`s songs were greatly influenced as much by her classical vocal and music theory training as contemporary artists as Barbra Streisand and Queen. During this time, Lara entered a number of European competitions and won several prizes. A consequence of winning one of those contests was the release of her first ever single " L`Aziza est en pleurs" / Il y avait " (written by the Belgian composer Marc Lerchs) a homage to the deceased French singer Daniel Balavoine, in the year of 1986.

1988-1993: Early music career
See also: Lara Fabian (French album)
In 1988, the RTL TV channel in Luxembourg invited Lara to represent the country at the 33rd Eurovision Song Contest, held that year in Dublin, Ireland. The song presented to Lara was a composition made by Jacques Cardona and Alain Garciac entitled Croire (Trust) and reached a respectable fourth place that night. The winning song belonged to Switzerland, whose singer was no other than Céline Dion with Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi. "Croire" became a big seller single that year in Europe reaching nearly 500.000 copies. Lara still performs Croire live today.

Upon finishing her studies (Lara was originally planing to devote her life to child criminology), in 1990 Lara travelled to Canada to promote her third single Je Sais and fell in love with the province of Quebec. In 1991, with two suitcases and $1,000 in her pocket, Lara moved to Montreal, Canada to embark on a career in North America. She began her own music label and publishing company, Productions Clandestines. She didn`t leave Brussels all by herself, as her then friend and music collaborator Rick Allison had also left his native Belgium and travelled with Lara to an adventure which became Lara`s rise to fame and her career so far. Rick first met Lara in a jazz bar in Brussels some years prior and was impressed by Lara`s vocals on Ella Fitzgerald`s Summertime. The pair worked steadily on writing and recording songs.

In 1991, Fabian`s self-titled French-language debut album, Lara Fabian, which had been recorded earlier in Belgium, was released in Canada in August 1991 and sold over 100,000 copies. The debut album went on to be certified Gold in 1993 and then certi

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