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Esther Abelie was always the little one. Born six weeks earlier than expected, the girl was the second Schiavone -- little baby, little sister, bambina of the family. It was a label she accepted without complaint during her childhood (there were advantages of being the young one, after all) but growing up isn't the most consistent process. When you're the daughter of Mr. Cibo di Marco, the sister of Mr. Georgie Charisma, and you're little and overweight and shy... well, finding a place to fit in was never going to be easy.
Apparently, school is tough for everyone. Learning is difficult and kids are mean and headteachers are easily distracted -- and as far as Esther was concerned her teenage years were years she couldn't wait to leave behind. Starting when she was about eleven up until she finished her exams, the girl was subject to bullying that was never constant but that never really went away either. Things could be fine for weeks and then one day, like the flick of a switch, she was the favourite target once again. Speaking up is a challenge for anybody experiencing that kind of torment and for a long time Esther chose to keep quiet. Keep quiet and introverted, stay home on a Saturday night, don't let them see how they could get her down.
Of course, those tactics couldn't prove to be 100% successful. The fact that Esther's dad expected her to help out at the restaurant certainly didn't help sometimes. Nights where her bullies would happen to be stopping in for dinner with their parents seemed all too convenient, and her natural clumsiness spurned a few complaints from patrons. And, when she wasn't expected to be at the restaurant, she'd have liked to have been living a little. Staying in every Saturday night was, quite frankly, completely boring but it was a self-preservation thing, see. If she didn't go out then she wouldn't run into anybody. Her house, her room, they were safe spaces. They were where she could be herself.
Her grandmother started teaching her how to play the piano when she was fourteen years old. Maybe the woman had noticed that her granddaughter was becoming increasingly subdued, or maybe she had just always wanted an opportunity to teach, but Esther took to it more and more as she found herself wanting to spend more time at home. It wasn't long before the musical education went further than playing the right notes. Giovanna Schiavone broke out the old records -- music by Etta James, Billie Holiday, Dusty Springfield -- and Essy started to sing. She may have been the little girl of the family, but when she was about fifteen years old she discovered just how big her voice could be. It didn't take very long for her grandmother and her father to strike up a deal. Esther wouldn't have to wait tables anymore, not when she could play and sing like that.
The rest of her school days passed with very little change, but Esther survived just fine. Most of the time, after all, she was just ignored by the worst of her peers. Her performances at the restaurant didn't exactly dull the bullying (if anything she was more 'at risk' on the days immediately succeeding an appearance) but they also kept her afloat. She loved singing, loved finally being heard, and when she began to write her own songs she took to that process quickly too. When she sat her final GCSE exam and officially left secondary school education, Esther could think of only one path to follow. She had to go to London and she had to try to find success as a musician. Coming up with a plan B just didn't even bear thinking about.
Life in London started out slow. Esther was seventeen years old and almost completely unprepared for the work that she would have to put in in order to make her dream play out. She spent a long time traipsing around the city, dropping off neatly packaged demos to people who probably wouldn't even give the disc a second glance, but she also took the opportunity to get a life. Her school years hadn't been the nicest environment for her to grow up in. A fresh start in the capital city provided her with experience after experience: new friends, new relationships, new reasons to smile and write and sing. In the end, it was a newfound friend who took initiative, putting one of her demos on myspace and prompting attention from A&R scouts almost instantly. Nick Huggett was the man who gave her name to all the right people at XL and she was signed to a label in 2006. Esther started working on her first album when she was eighteen years old.
Listing the whirlwind of achievements that followed is probably a task best left to the contributors of Esther's wikipedia page, but the moment she knew that it was all falling into place was when she won the inaugural Critics Choice Award at the BRITs. It was a win that meant a lot at the time but that means even more in hindsight, because people, important people, were believing in what she was doing. Having that kind of support structure meant the world.
19 was released in 2008. Although her US tour dates were cancelled as a result of her grandmother falling unexpectedly ill, although her manager was giving cautious warnings that her attempt to 'break' the States would be harmed by her lack of appearances there, when Esther performed on Saturday Night Live all bets were off. The record went to number one on the iTunes chart overnight and saw significant leaps in the official chart rankings. She won her first Grammy in 2009 -- two, in fact, for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She didn't even need her surname anymore. Esther, British export, girl ignored for most of her academic career, felt like she was on top of the world.
Then, of course, came the sophomore record.
Well, no, actually. Before (and a little bit during) the recording process for the sophomore record came a short-lived, turbulent relationship that would come to define Esther's life in, weirdly, the best kind of way. She has never and will never say anything more about the man other than she loved him, she made mistakes, he made mistakes, and it didn't work out -- but when it came to writing a record the songwriting ammunition was plentiful. Could she have ever imagined the acclaim that would follow its release? No, never. But then Esther believes that the very thing that makes it so popular is the thing that makes it relatively mundane too. Nothing she was writing about was groundbreaking, rather entirely universal.
21 is the current biggest selling UK album of the 21st century. Someone Like You went to number one in the UK after she performed it at the BRITs and repeated this success in the US after a performance at the VMAs. Records toppled in the wake of the album -- Esther was the first artist ever to sell three million albums in the UK in one calendar year, the first female artist to have two singles and two albums in the UK top five simultaneously, the most downloaded album in UK history. If she hadn't been a household name as a result of her first record, Esther was a global superstar as a result of her second offering. And yet...
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate everything she was experiencing, but it was all utterly overwhelming. So much so that when she was diagnosed with a vocal-cord haemorrhage (forcing yet another cancellation of tour dates) Esther was almost relieved. Almost. Taking a step back so as to work out whether she could handle the scrutiny that came with the public gaze was much needed. The truth was that she felt like she'd hopped straight from being the small bullied girl in Rochford to being the critically acclaimed singer -- and she didn't fit into either world.
Esther took four months to recuperate from her illness and during that time she spent a lot of time trying to define what it was that she wanted. A performance at the Grammys was already in the calendar and although she never spoke about completely stepping back from the industry (she loved it too much to let it go like that) the night did feel like it would play an important part in whatever she might decide to do next. Her name was called over and over again; six times Esther tottered up the stairs to make some kind of unrehearsed speech of appreciation. The standing ovation after her performance, the armful of awards, the barrage of compliments... there was very little doubt that her peers, at least, thought she belonged. It was a far cry from the years spent at school.
Still, she made a conscious decision to take a quiet few years so as to put together a third record carefully. The whirlwind of the year hadn't exactly provided ample time for songwriting; her estimation when people asked was that there would probably be at least two years until they heard new things from her.
Well, until the producers of James Bond approached her management and asked if she'd be interested in recording the theme. Because that was too good of an opportunity to pass up, right? Who would say no to that? Esther wouldn't and couldn't -- and, in the true spirit of everything she touched turning to gold, the song for Skyfall won her some more acclaim and a few more awards. This time she was on the Hollywood circuit, feeling as much of a fish out of water as ever but facing universal acceptance all the same. Returning to the UK with Oscar in her luggage was an image she never even considered to be a possibility, but there she was, February 25th 2013, doing just that. Crazy.
It's been three years since the release of 21, possibly just enough time for the exposure to have died down, for people to begin wondering what Esther is going to do next instead of sighing because they've heard Someone Like You five times on the radio today. And she's working on it. Really. But Esther Schiavone is, really, still that little one at heart. She might have a big voice, might be a big name, but the truth is that finding a place to fit in is still proving elusive.
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