85 Facts About Imogen Heap

Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer.

Imogen Heap is considered a pioneer in pop and electropop music.

Imogen Heap began writing songs at the age of 13 and taught herself music production while attending boarding school.

Imogen Heap released her debut album, an alternative rock record, I Megaphone, in 1998.

Imogen Heap composed the music for the West End and Broadway play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

In July 2019, Imogen Heap was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music.

Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap was born on 9 December 1977 in Havering, Greater London.

Imogen Heap was named after British composer Imogen Holst, as her mother wanted Heap to become a cellist like Holst.

Imogen Heap played music from an early age, first learning to play the piano at age two due to "wanting attention" as a middle child and realizing, according to her, that "it was something [she] could make a lot of noise with".

Imogen Heap has stated that "everyone was playing music" in her family home growing up and that she rarely listened to the radio.

Imogen Heap did not enjoy playing the music of classical composers such as Bach and Beethoven, and would instead attempt to play in their style to convince her parents she was practicing their music.

Imogen Heap soon began taking lessons and became classically trained in several instruments including piano, cello and clarinet while attending Friends School, a private, Quaker-run boarding school in Saffron Walden.

Imogen Heap has stated that she was "everyone's worst nightmare" while there, spending much of her time smoking and drinking.

Imogen Heap performed frequently at school recitals in order to avoid being punished for bad behavior.

Imogen Heap eventually got expelled from the school after cursing at her matron but, as they needed her to perform at the end-of-year concert, lived with the headmistress and played piano for the rest of the year.

In 1996, Imogen Heap began working with British experimental pop band Acacia, which featured her future collaborator Guy Sigsworth.

Imogen Heap toured the album in the United States and Europe from 1998 to 1999, though Almo cut funding for her tour in the United Kingdom and used the money to promote I Megaphone.

Imogen Heap was dropped from the label, leaving her without a record contract.

Imogen Heap described the formation of the duo as "very organic and spontaneous".

Imogen Heap stated that the two had not planned on making a follow-up album at the time due to their both being "kind of free spirits".

Imogen Heap later said that Island Records "did an absolutely terrible job of marketing [Details]" due to being more focused on promoting Sugababes at the time.

Sigsworth wanted Imogen Heap to sing on the cover and the two soon reunited as Frou Frou to record a rendition of the song, which appeared in the film's closing credits.

Imogen Heap recorded a rendition of the song "I'm a Lonely Little Petunia" for the seventh episode of the fourth season of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, which premiered in August 2004.

Imogen Heap was denied bank loans due to not being employed and, afraid of signing another record deal, she remortgaged her flat in Waterloo, London to finance the making of her next studio album.

Imogen Heap used the money to book a session to master the album one year ahead of its recording, to rent a studio at Atomic Studios in London, and to purchase all of the equipment to make it.

Partly in response to her frustration with being considered "just the singer" in Frou Frou, Imogen Heap aimed to create the album without any outside assistance.

In May 2005, Imogen Heap released "Hide and Seek", the lead single from her forthcoming album, with a music video directed by Peissig.

Imogen Heap self-released her second studio album, Speak for Yourself, through her newly-formed independent record label Megaphonic Records on 18 July 2005.

In November 2005, Imogen Heap wrote and produced the song "Can't Take It In" for the soundtrack of the fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was released one month later, after a soundtrack appearance by Dido fell through and the film's music supervisor needed a replacement.

Imogen Heap went on a three-week-long tour of the United States, which included a performance at Coachella, in 2006.

Imogen Heap recorded an a cappella cover of the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" for the season three finale of The OC.

Imogen Heap was variously referred to in the media as the first "download diva" for her robust online presence and independent success online in 2006.

Imogen Heap's music was used as the soundtrack for Pool, a one-act physical theatre play written by Mark Ravenhill and originally performed by Frantic Assembly, which opened at the Drum Theatre in Plymouth in September 2006.

At the 2006 MTVU Woodie Awards, which was voted on by college students, Imogen Heap tied with Arctic Monkeys for the most nominations with three, though she won none.

Imogen Heap wrote and performed the song "Glittering Cloud", which was based on the plague of locusts, as part of an event called the Margate Exodus sponsored by Artangel in November 2006, where ten artists each performed one song based on one of the Plagues of Egypt in Margate.

Imogen Heap toured the United States in late 2006 with beatboxer Kid Beyond and singer-songwriter Levi Weaver as opening acts.

Imogen Heap was featured on English band Temposhark's song "Not That Big" from their debut 2008 studio album The Invisible Line and on Nitin Sawhney's song "Bring It Home" on his 2008 studio album London Undersound.

Imogen Heap used these to comment on the album as well as update on its release.

In October 2008, Imogen Heap gave a musical performance in the anti-human trafficking documentary and rockumentary film Call + Response, directed by Justin Dillon.

Imogen Heap was featured on two songs on Jeff Beck's live album Live at Ronnie Scott's and appeared in the accompanying DVD in April 2009.

Imogen Heap announced on her Twitter page that Ellipses first single would be "First Train Home".

On 17 August 2009, Imogen Heap made the entire album Ellipse available for live streaming via her webpage.

Imogen Heap received two nominations for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, where she won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for her engineering work on Ellipse, making her the first female artist to win the award.

Imogen Heap recorded her song "Xizi She Knows" during a trip to Hangzhou, which was partially funded by PRS for Music and the British Council.

Imogen Heap collaborated with Canadian record producer Deadmau5 on the song "Telemiscommunications", which was included on his 2012 studio album, Album Title Goes Here, and released as the eighth single from the album in March 2013 alongside an animated music video.

In October 2015, Imogen Heap released the single "Tiny Human" using her blockchain-based platform Mycelia.

Imogen Heap co-wrote and produced the Taylor Swift song "Clean", which appeared as the closer to Swift's fifth studio album 1989 and led to her being part of the production team that won Album of the Year at the 58th Grammy Awards.

Imogen Heap returned to produce the re-recording of the song for 1989, released in 2023.

Imogen Heap was one of the artists featured in an episode of the 2016 PBS docuseries Soundbreaking and she narrated and composed music for the 2016 documentary Crossing Bhutan, which premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Imogen Heap wrote, produced and recorded the song "Magic Me" as the score for the 2017 animated short film Escape, which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival in April of that year.

Imogen Heap recorded "The Quiet" as the end credits song for the 2017 Square Enix video game The Quiet Man.

Imogen Heap performed "Hide and Seek" at the benefit concert and television special One Love Manchester in Manchester in June 2017.

Imogen Heap's performance was praised by critics as "powerful" and "melancholy".

Imogen Heap announced in November 2017 that she would be reuniting Frou Frou with Guy Sigsworth and would be embarking on the Mycelia World Tour with him to promote the release of Mycelia's Creative Passport program.

On 18 September 2018, Imogen Heap released The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Four Contemporary Suites, a condensed soundtrack album of the play.

Imogen Heap gave a lecture at Boston Calling Music Festival in May 2019.

Imogen Heap performed on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series that same month.

Imogen Heap hosted the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony in January 2020.

Imogen Heap gave a livestreamed closing performance for the Virtual Design Festival held by Dezeen in July 2020.

Imogen Heap released the single "Last Night of an Empire" in December 2020.

In late March 2022, Imogen Heap partnered with Symphonic Distribution to re-release previous material, including a handful of Frou Frou demos, which will compile into the Off Cuts release.

On 5 November 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall, Imogen Heap conducted an orchestra including her friends and family as they performed an original piece composed by Imogen Heap and orchestrated by Andrew Skeet.

Imogen Heap worked with London Contemporary Voices at this time, a scratch choir formed for this concert, which continues as a new choir in its own right.

Imogen Heap performed in the Film and Music Arena at Latitude Festival in 2011.

In 2006, Imogen Heap opened a residential recording studio called The Hideaway at The Round House in Havering, which was her family home and owned by her father.

In July 2011, Imogen Heap unveiled a pair of in-development, wired musical gloves at the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Early versions of Imogen Heap's gloves had issues with latency and accuracy.

Imogen Heap recorded her song "Me the Machine" using an early version of the gloves, debuting the single during a livestream on Earth Day in 2012.

In October 2015, Imogen Heap released the single Tiny Human using the blockchain-based platform Mycelia, which she created as a decentralized musical database for artists to share their music on and enforce smart contracts using Ethereum.

Imogen Heap has written, produced and engineered most of her music on her own.

Imogen Heap has stated that she rarely listens to music, but draws inspiration from TED conferences.

Imogen Heap plays a number of instruments, including piano, clarinet, cello, guitar, drums and the array mbira.

Imogen Heap extensively uses manipulated electronic sounds as an integral part of her music.

Imogen Heap has been regarded as influential in pop music, specifically in electropop and for using technology in her music.

Patrick Ryan of USA Today wrote that Imogen Heap "pioneered" the subgenre of folktronica, which combines elements of folk music and electronica.

Imogen Heap is known for her contributions to film and television soundtracks.

Imogen Heap has been cited as a musical inspiration by a number of artists and groups, including Ariana Grande, Bebe Rexha, Ellie Goulding, Kacey Musgraves, Pentatonix, Chloe Bailey, Empress Of, Dawn Richard, Jamila Woods, Muna, Mree, Woodes, Ben Hopkins, Matthew Parker, Red Moon, Michelle Chamuel, Chaz Cardigan, Laura Doggett, GoodLuck, Kool Kojak, and Stars and Rabbit.

In 2008, Imogen Heap participated in an album called Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace, which is an initiative to support Tibet, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and to underline the human rights situation in Tibet.

In 2010 Imogen Heap began performing improvised pieces at shows, asking for donations for charity after the show to download the song.

In 2011, Imogen Heap played a benefit concert in Christchurch, New Zealand, to help rebuild the Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti High School following a severe earthquake which destroyed a large portion of the city earlier in the year.

On 4 June 2017, Imogen Heap performed at One Love Manchester, a benefit concert organised by Ariana Grande in response to the bombing after her concert at Manchester Arena two weeks earlier.

In February 2025, Imogen Heap participated in an album titled Is This What We Want, a silent album in response to the UK government's proposed changes to copyright laws.

The premise of Live 4 X thus established, Imogen Heap has since continued to refine the model, organize, host and perform a number of charitable, live-streaming concert events.

In June 2014, Imogen Heap announced in her video blog that she was pregnant with her first child with Lebor.

Imogen Heap gave birth to their daughter later that year.