Tanya Chua (simplified Chinese: 蔡健雅; pinyin: Cài Jiànyǎ) is a Golden Melody Award-winning Singaporean singer and songwriter. Born on 28 January 1975 in Singapore, she is currently a pop star renowned in much of Asia, including Taiwan,China and Hong Kong.

Biography

Tanya Chua started out singing in English, releasing her first English album, Bored, in 1997. She was also the first Singaporean to win a prize in the Asia Song Festival, coming in first in the Unpublished category in 1998 before she furthered her studies at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, Los Angeles. However, the market for Singaporean English pop was very small, and she soon moved to singing in Mandarin, for which there was a Greater Asian market.

Tanya signed on to Universal Music Taiwan in 1998 and released her first Mandarin album, Breathe, in 1999. That album comprised compositions of her English songs matched to Chinese lyrics by Taiwanese lyricists. It was a critical hit in Taiwan, where she made a name for herself as a reputable singer-songwriter. Between 1999 and 2001, however, subsequent sales of her albums were mediocre, resulting in Universal dropping her as part of their cost-cutting exercise. In 2001, Tanya performed for her own country during the Singapore National Day Parade 2001 with the theme song titled "Where I Belong" which was also a big hit composed by herself.

Despite this, she rebounded in 2003 with a new album contract by the Warner label in Taiwan, and a more confident, assured album Stranger, which topped sales charts in Taiwan. That success was due primarily to a slick packaging and marketing system which feminised Tanya's hitherto rock-chick image, and matched her smooth and sultry vocals to romantic yet mature ballads that grew on the listener. Her second Warner album, Amphibian (2005), won her an award at Taiwan's most prestigious music awards ceremony, the Golden Melody Awards. The 2006 release of her compilation T-time marked an end to her album contract with Warner, and she is currently under record label, Asia Muse. She is still active in the media, occasionally appearing in the Singapore media on yoga-related articles. Her Goodbye and Hello (2007) album was nominated 7 times at the 19th Golden Melody Awards. She accomplished the rare feat of repeating as the Best Female Artist; she also garnered a Best Producer award.

Trivia

She speaks Mandarin, English, and Indonesian, which is mutually intelligible with Malay.