Nathalie Matteau - Diva in the Netherlands

Nathalie Matteau is a singer-songwriter who's passionate about communicating with her audience. A resident of Montreal, she's creating a career for herself on the other side of the Atlantic ... in the Netherlands!

 Nathalie's had an on-again-off-again relationship with music ever since she started singing. But when she relaunched her career for the third time in her early 30s, she decided to be true to her instincts and she's found a receptive audience in Europe.

 Nathalie started composing music and lyrics in her early 30s. Her writing at the time was in collaboration with the other half of a duo, but when the musical pair broke up she started composing on her own. Nathalie admires a wide range of musicians, in particular Kurt Weill, Tom Waits, Johann Sebastian Bach, Sonny Rollins, Marianne Faithfull, Jacques Brel and the group De Kift.

Nathalie participated in an open mic evening eight years ago and found herself on stage for the first time in a long time. The positive response from the audience encouraged her to continue.

Nathalie made contact with Dutch percussionist Kees Swanenberg, and with his help was able to put together a band for her performances in the Netherlands. The other musicians that make up Les Hommes Perdus are Michaël Breukers, accordion, Erik Potters, bombardon, Leon Van Egmond, trombone and harmonica, and Peter Dupont, bass and alto sax.

Nathalie is her own manager and she books all her shows in advance from Montreal. Her preferred venues in the Netherlands are music cafés, which can accommodate betweeen 40 and 200 music lovers. One of the places she likes to sing is Cambrinus, in the town of Horst in the province of Limburg.

Accustomed to rowdy audiences in Montreal, Nathalie was unsettled at first when she discovered that her Dutch audiences actually listened to her songs. She quickly embraced their enthusiasm and now she reaches out to her public, looks them in the eye and communicates with them directly. People have told Nathalie her songs give them the strength to keep going after a relationship has ended. Others have said her songs express what they're unable to articulate at the loss of a loved one.

Nathalie enjoys singing at festivals, where she's invited to perform for intimate audiences of between 80 and 120 people. She's performed at the Elastiek Festival, the Oerol Festival and the Onderstroom Festival, all in the Netherlands.

Nathalie has just released a new CD, Bloody Hands in Love. She's signed a distribution deal for the CD with a Dutch company called Sonic Rendezvous. They cover the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and have connections in France and Germany. Now Nathalie's looking for a booking agent so she can concentrate her energy on composing and performing.

You can listen to Nathalie at her MySpace site: www.myspace.com/lenyab.