Lara Sophie Katy Crokaert (born January 9, 1970), better known as Lara Fabian, is a Belgian-Canadian pop singer and songwriter. She has sold over 20 million records worldwide as of 2021 and is one of the best-selling Belgian artists of all time. She was born in Etterbeek, Brussels, to a Belgian father and a Sicilian mother. She lived the first part of her childhood in Sicily, Catania, speaking Italian as her first language. She moved to Quebec in 1991 and since 1995, she has held Canadian citizenship alongside her Belgian one. In 2003, she returned to Brussels to be close to her parents in Belgium and in 2015 lived in Walloon Brabant province in Belgium just outside Brussels. In 2017, she returned permanently to Montreal, Quebec, to be with her family. Fabian is the only child of Pierre Crokaert, who is Flemish, and Maria Luisa Serio, a Sicilian. Fabian's parents recognized her talent early on and enrolled her in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels when she was eight years old; she studied there for 10 years. During the 1980s, Fabian entered a number of European competitions and won several prizes. She released her first single, "L'Aziza est en pleurs" / "Il y avait" in 1986. In 1988, the RTL TV channel in Luxembourg invited Fabian to represent the country at the 33rd Eurovision Song Contest, held that year in Dublin, Ireland. The song was a composition by Jacques Cardona and Alain Garcia entitled Croire (Belief) which reached a respectable fourth place (while Celine Dion won the contest representing Switzerland). The single became a hit in Europe, selling nearly 500,000 copies. In 1990, Fabian and musical collaborator Rick Allison moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada to embark on a career in North America. They started their own music label and publishing company, Productions Clandestines. In August 1991, her self-titled French-language debut album, Lara Fabian, was released in Canada and sold over 100,000 copies. The album went gold in 1993, and platinum the following year. The success of upbeat dance-pop singles such as "Le jour où tu partira", "Les murs", and "Qui pense à l'amour" gave Fabian radio exposure. She received several nominations at the 1993 ADISQ awards, and a poll published around that time voted her Québec's most promising singer. Constant touring in Québec helped Fabian's 1994 album Carpe diem become her breakthrough album. The album went Gold three weeks after its release, and spawned three hit singles: "Tu t'en vas", "Si tu m'aimes", and "Leïla". The following year, the album went triple platinum. Fabian received two Félix awards at the 1995 ADISQ gala: Best Show Of The Year and Best Female Singer Of The Year (a category that is voted for by the public). In 1996, Walt Disney Studios hired Fabian as the voice of the character of Esmeralda in the Canadian French version of the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney also included "Que Dieu aide les exclus", Fabian's French version of the song "God Help The Outcasts", on the film's English soundtrack album alongside Bette Midler's version. Since 1996 Lara Fabian has also held Canadian citizenship alongside her original Belgian passport. ... Source: Article "Lara Fabian" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

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