Elva Hsiao

	Elva Hsiao
	Profile
Chinese name:	蕭亞軒
Date of birth:	August 24, 1979 (age 35)
Place of birth:	Zhongli City, Taoyuan County (now Zhongli District, Taoyuan City), Republic of ; China
Nationality	Taiwan
Education	John Casablancas Institute
Occupation	Singer
Years active	1996–present
Agent	Sony Music Entertainment
	Physical
Gender:	Female
Height:	162cm
Weight:	45kg
Blood type:	A

Biography[]

She was educated at John Casablanca's College in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is fluent in both written and spoken English. While in Vancouver, she attended the New Talent Singing Awards Vancouver Audition in 1998 with her birth name of Hsiao Ya-Chih (蕭雅之). She became one of the 12 finalists but did not place in the top 5. She sang CoCo Lee's "Love Me A Little Longer (Chinese: 愛我久一點)". In that competition there were 3 other Taiwanese recent singers, 183 Club member Jacky Chu (祝釩剛), who was the winner, DJ Ruby Lu (盧春如), 1st Runner-Up and Michelle*Vickie (蜜雪薇琪) member Michelle Hsu (now known as Mimi or Michelle). In 2010, she admitted to receiving double eyelid surgery at a media event, after years of speculation from netizens.

Love Life[]

Kai, and Elva's May-December romance was revealed when they were caught dating at a park in 2012. However it was announced that Elva Hsiao ended the romance in June 2014. Elva Hsiao stated that 'everything ends here'. Rumors says that their 12-year age gap could be a barrier for the couple.

Music career[]

Elva was originally signed to Virgin Records Taiwan, a sub-label of EMI, which created the Chinese stage name (蕭亞軒) for her. Her self-titled début album in 1999 sold over 1 million copies in Asia and cemented her status in the Chinese music industry.

In 2001, Elva won the award for Best Selling Chinese Artist at the 2001 World Music Awards held in Monaco on 2 May.^[4]

In 2002, Elva recorded the song "U Make Me Wanna" with British boy band Blue, which appeared on her album Love's Theme Song, Kiss. Virgin Records and Elva parted ways in the summer of 2004.

For a year, Elva rested as record companies fought over her next contract. It ended up becoming a battle between Warner Music Taiwan and Sony BMG, with Warner Music winning the battle in the end. Elva signed into Warner Music on 23 March 2005, making her Warner Taiwan's "fifth diva" (after Sammi Cheng, A-Mei Chang, Na Ying, and Stefanie Sun).^[5] Fans were overjoyed at this, and waited for the coming of a new album, which Warner had promised would be released in June 2005.

However, Warner Music Taiwan was facing internal issues during this period, including executives resigning and a change of staff members. Many other Warner artists (including Stefanie Sun, Machi, A-Mei, and F.I.R.) were affected and did not see much promotion on their albums. However, none faced as much trouble as Elva, whose album was delayed from September till December and eventually Warner announced that the album would be delayed indefinitely. This angered the fans, who had been waiting patiently. Their protests spammed the forums of Warner Music Taiwan, causing the entire website to be out of service for a week.

In February 2006, a Warner representative promised in an interview that the album would be released around late March/early April. It was only a few weeks later that magazine articles reported another change of staff members and the possibilities of the album being delayed into late April/early May. In June 2006, she released a new single, entitled "The World I Want" [我要的世界].

In October 2006, the delayed album still had not been released, although Elva announced that it would be released in December. At that time she was in Los Angeles working on dance choreography. In addition, she released another new promotion single entitled "Elva Is Back", a fast catchy song featuring electro beats and raps. A dance song “Confession”(表白) made the top 10. Elva and Warner Music announced in November that her newest album would be released on 22 December. The album is called 1087, signifying the number of days Elva had been absent from the Mandopop scene.

She released the music video for her single called "Confession" in mid-2007. Her next singles were "L.o.V.E", "Not Far Away", "The Ambassador", "Honey Honey Honey", and "My Boyfriend".

Back to EMI[]

After the contract with Warner Music, Elva decided to switch back to EMI Virgin Records in 2008. She described the switch as "going back home" as she was among the first few artists signed by Virgin Music Chinese in 1999 when the division was first established. Some critics also commented Elva was avoiding the back of Warner's original General Manager Sam Chen who has a bad name in Chinese music industry in controlling and creating fake statistics for his artists. The rumoured contract cost EMI over NT$250 million which is over HKD 60 million or about USD 8 million. Johanna Wang, President of EMI Music Taiwan commented that the action of signing Elva was proving they (EMI) are not going to quit the Chinese music scene. Instead, they would create a new entertainment empire spanning over film productions, artist management, concert production, publishing and both digital and traditional music industries.

Elva's first album back with EMI,三面夏娃, was originally set to be released in late May 2008. But due to the delay in production and of China's approval due to the Olympic Games, the album was pushed back and released on 13 June 2008.

Elva switched her record company to Gold Typhoon after Gold Label Record's acquisition of EMI Music Taiwan in August 2008.

Film and other media work[]

In Taiwan, she has done television commercials for a wide diversity of products, ranging from mobile phones to jewellery to makeup, for major brands such as Avon, De Beers, Motorola, Pantene, and Sprite. She has had film roles in two movies: Infernal Affairs (2002) and The Butterfly Lovers (2004). She is no longer participating in Fresh Tomato for Sauce (Announced 2007). However, she is currently in talks to play a role in the TV series Less Than Zero, a retake on Bret Easton Ellis' famous novel that will be set in Taipei. She will play the role of Julie Chang, a UCLA business major interning in Taipei with Smith Barney.

By joining EMI Virgin Records, the EMI's Gold Label Records which is seen as an inter-industrial agency is starting to find scripts and tailor-made roles for Elva as she plans to have more participation in movies under EMI, as part of changes to the strategic plans of EMI in the Asia-Pacific market. She will have a role in an upcoming TV series called 大江大海一九四九, which seeks to chronicle the material covered in Lung Ying-tai's novel of the same name (which chronicles the Chinese Civil War).

The first cross-media work is the co-partnership with Puma which Elva would become the spokesperson of Puma and Puma would buy media place including TVCs, print ads, billboards for the label and Elva's album. Puma would also sponsor Elva's music video "I'll Be There".

Discography[]

Studio[]

#	English Title	Chinese Title	Released	Label
1st	Elva Hsiao Self-Titled Album	蕭亞軒同名專輯	17 November 1999	Virgin Records Taiwan
2nd	Red Rose	紅薔薇	15 August 2000	Virgin Records Taiwan
3rd	Tomorrow	明天	21 April 2001	Virgin Records Taiwan
4th	4U		11 February 2002	Virgin Records Taiwan
5th	Love's Theme Song, Kiss	愛的主打歌，吻	1 November 2002	Virgin Records Taiwan
6th	In Love with Love	愛上愛	16 May 2003	Virgin Records Taiwan
7th	Fifth Avenue	第五大道	31 December 2003	Virgin Records Taiwan
8th	1087	1087	22 December 2006	Warner Music Taiwan
9th	3-Faced Elva	3面夏娃	15 June 2008	EMI Music Taiwan
10th	Diamond Candy	鑽石糖	9 October 2009	Gold Typhoon (Taiwan)
11th	Miss Elva	蕭灑小姐	24 September 2010	Gold Typhoon (Taiwan)
12th	I'm Ready	我愛我	23 December 2011	Gold Typhoon (Taiwan)
13th	Shut Up and Kiss Me	不解釋親吻	1 September 2014	Sony Music (Taiwan)

English album[]

#	Name	Released	Label
1st	Elva First	23 October 2001	Virgin Records Taiwan

Compilations[]

#	English Title	Chinese Title	Released	Label
1st	Beautiful Episode	美麗的插曲	16 July 2004	Virgin Records Taiwan
2nd	Love Elva... Remix & More	最熟悉的...蕭亞軒	8 December 2006	Virgin Records Taiwan
3rd	Super Girl	愛無畏	22 December 2012	Gold Typhoon (Taiwan)

Awards and nominations[]

Year	Award	Category	Nomination	Result
2000	Hong Kong TVB8 Awards	Best New Artist (Bronze)	Elva Hsiao	Won
2001	World Music Awards	Best Selling Chinese Artist	Elva Hsiao	Won
2008	Metro Radio Mandarin Music Awards	Songs of the Year	"I'll Be There" from 3-Faced Elva	Won
		Best Singer Dancer	Elva Hsiao	Won
		Best Female Singer (overseas)	Elva Hsiao	Won
		Best Asia Singer	Elva Hsiao	Won