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I grew up singing. My mother was a music teacher.

I remember growing up singing; even when I was just three years old, I was singing all the time in the house. My parents said I was singing before I could even talk properly.

My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.

My grandmother sang, too, and she was really loud. It was this wild kind of singing. I count her among my influences.

I grew up with singers. My father's mother sang opera. My dad was a big band singer. I can't remember a time there wasn't music in the house, so I grew up listening to great songwriters - George Gershwin, Cole Porter - and my grandma was playing opera for me before I was 3.

I was always singing and dancing for my mother when I wasn't glued to the television watching I Love Lucy or the Carol Burnett Show.

My mom was an opera singer, and she gave up her career to raise a family. But she also taught my sisters how to sing.

My mother was the first singer I had contact with. She sang constantly to us around the house, in church.

I had always sung, as far back as I can remember, for the pure love of it. My voice was contralto, and I sang in a church in Naples from fourteen till I was eighteen.

It was my Mum who got me into singing properly - she knew I had to do something with my voice because she knew I was talented. She was the one who pushed me into joining a choir all those years ago, when I was about 12. I remember she told me to start with the choir and just see where it took me.