Kiri Te Kanawa
Soprano

Kiri Te Kanawa was born on March 6, 1944 in Gisborne, New Zealand.  She was adopted as an infant by an Irish woman and a Maori man.  As a young woman, she performed in night clubs around New Zealand, singing pop music.

In 1966 she moved to London and began studying opera under James Robertson at the London Opera Centre.  She performed in her first opera in 1968, and shortly thereafter was cast as the Countess in Figaro by John Crosby at the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico.  She went on to perform in venues all over the world in cities such as Chicago, Paris, and Vienna.  Kanawa retired from opera in 2004.

She started the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, which provides scholarship money to young people in New Zealand who wish to pursue a career in music.  She married a man named Desmond Park in 1967 and they adopted.

Information from wikipedia and kiritekanawa.org.