Teenage New Zealand singing sensation Hayley Westenra has broken all records in Britain with the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the classical charts.
Pure, the 16-year-old's debut British release, has achieved higher first week sales than such household names as Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church and Russell Watson.
The album has gone straight into the UK Pop Chart at No 8 and is at No 1 in the Classical Charts.
Westenra was discovered busking in Christchurch aged 11, and was snapped up by Universal Music NZ, which subsequently signed her directly to Universal's London-based classics label Decca Records for a five-album, £3 million ($8.39 million) deal.
Having just performed with Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel in Wales, she makes her British solo debut at the Royal Albert Hall in December, and has also been invited to appear on Michael Parkinson's talk show.
