Anneke van Giersbergen Biography

Anneke van Giersbergen (born March 8, 1973) is the former singer of the Dutch band The Gathering, now involved in a solo project called Agua de Annique. She has also worked with Lawn, Farmer Boys, Ayreon, Napalm Death, Moonspell and Within Temptation.

Van Giersbergen was born in Sint Michielsgestel, Netherlands. At the age of 8, she participated in soundmix contests. When she was 12, she was in her school choir. Later on, she started taking singing lessons and joined her first band. She joined a few more bands before becoming part of the duo Bad Breath who played a mix of blues, jazz, folk and funk.

She finally joined The Gathering in 1994.

In 1998, she sang on the Ayreon album Into the Electric Castle, a concept album telling the tale of an alien entity 'kidnapping' 8 human souls from different times. Anneke portrayed an Egyptian woman from the time of the pharaohs.

She appears on the album Rubicon from John Wetton and Geoffrey Downes on the tracks "To Catch a Thief" and "Tears of Joy".

She also appears on the 2006 album Smear Campaign by the grindcore/death metal band Napalm Death, on the tracks "Weltschmerz" and "In Deference" "... for good effect and relevance to the track."

On June 5, 2007 it was announced that Anneke would be leaving The Gathering in August 2007 to focus on a new project, Agua de Annique, and spend more time with her family.

On November 24, 2007 she performed the song "Somewhere" with Within Temptation in Eindhoven.

On February 7, 2008 she performed the song "Somewhere" with Within Temptation at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam featured in the Within Temptation live DVD Black Symphony.

Anneke also sings on the Ayreon album 01011001, released in early 2008. The character she portrays is one of the Forever, an alien being of the same race who kidnapped her character from Into the Electric Castle.

She sings on "Scorpion Flower" from the album Night Eternal (2008) from Moonspell. 3 December 2008 she performed this song live with Moonspell in the 013, Tilburg.

Anneke's musical roots are in the classical and jazz music, but she enjoys rock and pop the most. Her main influences are Prince, Ella Fitzgerald and Thom Yorke (Radiohead).

On February 20, 2005, she gave birth to a son named Finn, whom she had with her husband Rob Snijders.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneke_van_giersbergen