‘Becoming a singer was one thing, but singing in front of an audience was another story.’
We know them from their role in the spotlight. But what keeps the famous Netherlands out of the spotlight? Anne-Mar Zwart discovered at a young age that she has a talent that not everyone is born with: she can sing so flawlessly that Mariah Carey could still suck a piece of it. In conversation with Glamial she talks about her hidden talent.
Learned young
“I was still very small when I discovered: hey, I sing exactly like the lady on the CD. When I heard friends singing, it sounded very different. I sometimes deliberately sang along on the upstairs landing, hoping that my parents would hear it. In my imagination they would say to each other: ‘Wow, that Anne-Mar can sing, how nice and funny!’” she tells us.
Her role model? None other than Mariah Carey, of course. For example, she had a gigantic poster of the singer hanging in her room, and she says she suffered ‘a small trauma’ from it when it disappeared one day. “My mother claimed it was accidentally torn while cleaning, but I’m sure she just took it away. I was so deeply sad. How dare she touch my Mariah Carey?”
Baptism by fire
Yet it took a long time before Anne-Mar really dared to do something with this talent. For example, she reveals that she suffered from a heavy dose of nervous shivers as soon as an audience was present to hear her voice. “Becoming a singer was one thing, but singing in front of an audience was another story,” she shares.
In the end, she came a long way with small steps, and in this way she grew over her greatest fear. “One of my first major singing performances was The Passion in 2018. Together with Jeangu Macrooy I sang a song by Marco Borsato on top of the A’Dam Tower. I can still dream the lyrics: ‘Close your eyes for a second, put a smile on your face.’ Jeangu and I played ping-pong: I wrote two sentences, he wrote two sentences. It wasn’t much, but you could carry me away. It really felt like a baptism of fire,” she looks back now.
Presenter and singer
“I would rather present a TV program in front of a full stadium than have to sing a song. Presenting is my profession, I know that: I bring this to a successful conclusion. But I’m not so convinced of that with singing, even though I love doing it,” says Anne-Mar.
She doesn’t sing in the shower, she does in the car, and she does just as well when she’s working at home. She now has her own singing group with a number of girls she met at Babette Labeij’s singing school, and she likes it very much. “But I have lost my dream of becoming a professional singer,” she tells Glamial.
Should we not expect any music from Anne-Mar in the future? In any case, she does not rule it out: “I just enjoy singing and it’s stupid that I don’t do enough with it, because it tickles: I have been given this talent, I can do something, so I have to do something with it. Who knows, maybe I’ll post something on YouTube or Instagram soon. First I need to gather courage, haha.”
This article is part of an interview with Bobbi Eden, Jelka van Houten and Anne-Mar Zwart about their greatest passions and special hobbies outside the spotlight. You can read the full article in the new Glamial. Now in stores!
Interview: Fleur Baxmeier | Image: NL Image
