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Artist
Nolwenn Leroy, (born 28 September 1982 in Saint-Renan, Finistère, Brittany), is a French singer and songwriter, who rose to fame after winning the second series of the French television reality show, Star Academy. She has since recorded four studio albums and scored two number one singles, "Cassé" and "Nolwenn Ohwo!", on the French charts. In 2012, her album, Bretonne, was certified Four times diamond for sales exceeding Two million copies. Leroy's parents left Saint-Renan when she was four years old. After living in Paris, Lille, and Guingamp, her mother, Murielle, and her younger sister, Kay, settled with Leroy's grandparents in Saint-Yorre. Her mother divorced from her father, professional footballer Jean-Luc Le Magueresse, in 1993. Nolwenn studied at the "Collège des Célestins" in Vichy. When Leroy was eleven, her music teacher noticed her musical talents and encouraged her to learn the violin. At the age of thirteen she won "Les écoles du désert", a contest sponsored by the Cora supermarket chain, which allowed her to travel with a humanitarian mission from Gao to Timbuktu, Mali; she later claimed this had a profound influence on her. In July 1998, Leroy was awarded a scholarship by the Vichy Rotary Club to travel to Hamilton, Ohio, as an exchange student. While attending Hamilton High School, she took music lessons at the Performing Arts School and became fluent in English during her stay there. When she returned to France, she began classical singing classes at th