BIOGRAPHY
An Insight Into
Kameliya Afshari's life
IT STARTS WITH
A Fairy Tale Baby...
Born in 1994 from an Iranian father descending of the King Nader Chah and from a French mother, descending of farmers and weavers. Communist, he had to run away from Iran for France where he met her mother.
A voice cultivated since her early childhood…
Kameliya Afshari has been practicing music since the age of 6 in conservatoires. After managing to mangle Gentil Coquelicot on the violin, she realized that the voice was the only instrument that suited her the most. So she focused fully on it.
From the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées to the international…
In 2008, she attended the Chœur Maîtrisien of the Wasquehal Conservatoire, conducted by Pascale Diéval-Wils, where she had professional experiences very quickly : at 15 years old, she was propelled right up to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, singing J. S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion under the direction of Jean-Claude Malgoire. At 16, she sang la Marseillaise and le Chant des Partisans with the French Army Choir during the 14th of July Parade on the Champs-Elysées. Then she took part in the Choir’s tour to Poland, Portugal and France, followed by the recording of an album.
A bilingual actress…
Kameliya was the clown at the family dinners from a very young age. At home, she was watching TV a lot and she started to embody her favourite characters, like Mary Poppins. She naturally took acting lessons at school, where she notably played Magdelon in Les Précieuses Ridicules by Molière. At 14, she attended the English European class. Her teacher, Mr Daullet, who was also an actor, noticed her : he believed in her potential and trained her to improvise and act in English in his drama club.
She enhanced her way of acting thanks to Jean-Louis Bertsch in the Roubaix Conservatoire. She also had a training in the Lille Conservatoire with Vincent Goethals and Sébastien Lenglet.
During an internship at the Le Prato theatre, she discovered all the lines of work in the theatre trade, from staging to the communication of a show.
Her voice is a real instrument
At 16 years, she started her lyric singing lessons at the Wasquehal Conservatoire with Valérie Poivre and Nobuko Takahashi. It allowed her to reach a vast range in her repertoire : from Mozart’s Italian arias to operettas, from Poulenc’s French melodies to Schumann’s lieder, from West side Story to Baroque singing. After 6 years spent at the Maîtrise de Wasquehal, she kept on singing in choir under the direction of Pascale Diéval-Wils in Qu’Artz. She approached the sacred and secular music of Monteverdi, as well as Brahms, Schubert and Stravinsky compositions.
In 2013, she joined the class of Françoise Semellaz and the Chamber choir at Lille Regional Conservatoire. She enhanced her technique with Brigitte Toulon and the Atelier lyrique at the Roubaix conservatoire in 2014-2015. She played the part of a young comic stage director and that of old Marceline in an adaptation of Le Nozze di Figaro.
Parallel to this, she continued her education and achieved a Bachelor in Musicology. She discovered her jazzy voice by doing some gigs with some university friends. So she started to give concerts, accompanied by a pianist, with a lyrical-jazz repertoire, in different venues such as : the Spotlight in Lille, the Proust Festival, art galleries (PPGM in Roubaix).
Thousands of views on her videos…
In 2015, she reccorded her first video clip as a singer and a director, with the help of Jonathan Sédivy and Alassane Sissoko. She was involved in the video project for Fauré’s Les Berceaux in 2016 with Simon Fache, a famous French pianist.
LONDON calling…
But London has been calling her since she was 15. So she left in 2015 to fulfill her dreams. She worked her improvisation skills in English with The Nursery’s Improv class. It led her to decisive encounters who made it possible for her to sing at prestigious venues such as the Ivy Club in Leicester square, and the Millennium Hotel.
Model for
Kate Moss & Queen Elizabeth’s
fashion designers
Spotted during a Chanel event, she paraded down the catwalk for Azucena Cruz, one of Kate Moss’s fashion designers, and for Deida Acero who created some hats of the Queen Elizabeth. Furthermore, Kameliya is regularly solicited as a model for photographers in France and abroad. She has worked with Guillaume Longuet, Jean-Paul Ledieu.
She played her 1st show in 800 seats-theatres!
Then she returned to France with a new show in the pipeline, Back In Time, that was put on at the Kino in 2016. After seeing the audience who really enjoyed the show, she decided to stay in France to refine and reshape it, with the help of François Marzynski (Simon Fache’s stage director), Yves Noulez and Juliette Lemille.
She conquered the North of France public in 2018, playing in 800 seats-theatres like the Raymond Devos Municipal Theatre in Tourcoing, or The Le Pacbo in Orchies.
The same year, she was invited to open the International Basketball Tournament with a performance.
Female lead part in her 1st short movies and series on French television…
In 2018, she starred in short movies where she had the female lead part: le Piège by Yvan Kupriez, La Dernière Larme by Julie Kambire.
In 2019, feeling at ease in English as in French, she reinterpreted the role of Summer (500 Days of Summer). Then she got a role in the new series of Simon Bouisson, Stalk, that will be broadcasted on the streaming platforms of French Television in March 2020.
A multidisciplinary artist
always curious and who likes
to solve challenges
Kameliya has always wanted to give the best of herself and be the artist the most fulfilled as possible. She conducted a choir of 60 people (Les 4 saisons) in Wasquehal at the age of 19, during more than one year. She regularly writes, she has made short movies and videos, and learnt to edit videos. She learns languages very easily and can speak : French, English, Spanish and a little bit of Persian. She even improvised herself as a producer and a communication manager for one of her dates in a 800 seats-theatre, where she had to organize everything.
She always works to improve herself by getting new skills and trainings : in 2019, she attended a production class, tried English boxing, and is now practicing kung-fu. She also flew a plane a few times and drove a boat for the 1st time during a storm.
An artist who wants to transmit
When she’s not on stage, she helps and trains people who are not self-confident in speaking and/or singing in front of an audience.
