Siti Nurhaliza

Dato' Sri Siti Nurhaliza Binti Tarudin (Jawi: سيتي نورهاليزا بنت تارودين ; IPA: [ˈsiti nʊrhaˈliza ˈbinti taˈrudɪn]; born 11 January 1979) is a Malaysian singer and businesswoman. To date, she has garnered almost 300 local and international awards. She made her debut after she won a popular local singing competition show Bintang HMI in 1995 when she was only 16. Her debut single, "Jerat Percintaan", won the 11th Anugerah Juara Lagu and another two awards for Best Performance and Best Ballad. The album itself as of 2005, has been sold to a total of more than 800,000 units in Malaysia alone. In her career, she has recorded and sung in multiple languages, including Malaysian, Javanese, English, Mandarin, Arabic, Urdu, and Japanese.Throughout her career, Siti has received an unprecedented number of music awards in Malaysia and its neighbouring countries: 42 Anugerah Industri Muzik, 25 Anugerah Bintang Popular, 27 Anugerah Planet Muzik, 20 Anugerah Juara Lagu, four MTV Asia Awards, three World Music Awards, two Anugerah Musik Indonesia (Indonesian Music Awards), and two records in the Malaysia Book of Records. Backed with 17 studio albums, she is one of the most popular artists in the Malay Archipelago and Nusantara region – she has been voted for Regional Most Popular Artiste ten times in a row beating other fellow artists from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore in the Anugerah Planet Muzik since 2001. Currently, she has been listed as one of Malaysia's richest, most-influential, most award-winning, and most single-produced artist. She is also one of Malaysia's best selling artists, for instance, her album sales alone contributed to 10 percent of Malaysia's total album sales in 2001. To date, she has sold more than 6 million in record sales. At international stage, Siti has won the Gold Award in Asia New Singer Competition at Shanghai Asia Music Festival in 1999, two awards from 'South Pacific International Song and Singing Competition 1999' held in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, and the Grand Prix Champion title in Voice of Asia in 2002 held in Almaty, Kazakhstan.Besides musical awards, she has various other achievements. In 1998, Siti was chosen to perform during the closing ceremony of 1998 Commonwealth Games in front of Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Philip, among other dignitaries and officials from 70 countries including those from the Commonwealth of Nations. In 2005, Siti became the first Southeast Asian singer, and third Asian singer to perform a solo concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, while being backed by the London Symphony Orchestra. She was listed second by MTV Asia in Asia's Best Musical Artiste and Channel V's Biggest Asian Artiste in 2005. Later in 2008, she was named as one of Asia's Idol by Asia News Network. Her success in the Asian region has gained her honorific titles including the "Voice of Asia" and "Asia's Celine Dion".