Natalia was born in 1986 and raised in Johannesburg until she relocated to Cape Town in 1995 where she now lives. She attended the Waterfront Theatre School under the tutelage of Delia Sainsbury and has taken roles in a long list of school operettas and other musical and theatrical productions. Natalia studied music and art for Matric and is currently studying for a Business Science degree at the University of Cape Town.

Career Details:

Natalia has been playing guitar, singing and writing her own material since age 12. She recorded her first demo, 'Fly Away', at VX Sound Studios at the Video Lab Studios at the Waterfront in March 2001.

During April 2002, she recorded her second set of demos at Tim Parr's 'Front Ear Studios'.

These two songs – 'Bright Young Thing' and 'Ugly' - were produced by Ben Amato (Colorfields, The Branch). Both are original songs written by Natalia.

"He [Ben Amato] recently contributed to emerging talent Natalia's song 'Bright Young Thing'" -- SL magazine, December 2002

Natalia made her solo debut appearance at the 'Mountain Of Music' Charity Concert at The Jam/206 (now The Mercury) on Tuesday 30 April 2002. Natalia appeared alongside Venessa Nolan, Simon van Gend, and Two Wise Men on the 206 acoustic stage. Headlining the bill for the rock stage upstairs at the Jam were Karen Zoid, Kobus!, Kelvin Declined, New World Inside (now Fokofpolisiekar), Hog Hoggidy Hog, and Flow.

Natalia's set-list for her 'Mountains Of Music' appearance was: 'Always And Forever', 'Paradise', 'Ugly', 'Michelle' *, 'DJ', 'Summer Fades', 'Bright Young Thing'. (*by Anouk)

On Friday 4th October 2002, Natalia spent an afternoon in the Street Level Studios in Cape Town and recorded 10 solo tracks with Richard Black and Chris Tait.

To date, 'Beach Girl', 'Bright Young Thing', 'GFY', and 'Ugly' have charted in the Top 5 on the SA Rock Digest Top 30 mp3 charts, and other tracks from those Street Level Studios sessions, including 'Beach Girl', are also available at http://www.SAmp3.com.

Live at the Mercury Lounge:

On Thursday, December 5th 2002, Natalia appeared at the Mercury Lounge as support to Minus. The SA Rock Digest had this to say about the gig: "There's a big buzz about this rock double feature at the Mercury Lounge on Thursday 5 December. Minus have emerged during 2002 as one of the most popular bands on the UCT 'Varsity' circuit. Supporting Minus will be a much younger solo rock act currently drawing a lot of attention on the 'High School' circuit on the opposite side of Table Mountain. Natalia is a Camps Bay student who first appeared at the Mercury Lounge (then 206) on the prestigious 'Mountains Of Music' bill earlier this year. and , her first two demo releases on SAmp3.com, have received consistent downloads and her first recording proper, also due in 2003, should include 'Girlfriend', 'What Can I Say', and '9-5 (Poppy Quest)'. 2003 is the year Cape Rock explodes, catch these recommended two acts at the Mercury Lounge on Thursday"

Natalia's setlist for the gig was: '9-5 (Poppy Quest)', 'Ugly', 'Summer Fades', 'Breakdown', 'What Can I Say (When You Look At Me That Way)', 'Beach Girl', 'Girlfriend', 'GFY'.

2002 Year-End Charts:

In the SA Rock Digest's end-of-year charts for 2002, 'Ugly' was at #10 on the Top 50 Songs of 2002 list. 'Beach Girl' was also played on the SA Rock Digest's year-end 'Best of 2002' two-part program on SAFM on Friday 27 December.

Janie Jones

During 2003, Natalia formed her first band, Janie Jones, with her brother Rafi Segerman (drums), Alex Baker (guitar) and Natlie Jordan (alias Stacey Bass) (on bass).

Janie Jones played a series of gigs in Cape Town, including supporting Karma and The Rudimentals at The Mercury.

Janie Jones also recorded a series of live demos at Street Level Studios. In 2004 Janie Jones broke up and Natalia's career took a back seat while she completed her Matric studies.

Details on Janie Jones at http://www.rock.co.za/janiejones

2005

In May 2005, a song called 'Nowhere's Calling' that was written by Natalia, and specially commissioned for the SA TV3 travel series, 'Going Nowhere Slowly', was used in the soundtrack of an episode of that program.

'Nowhere's Calling' also picked up plenty of radio play, following the exposure on 'Going Nowhere Slowly', and was on rotation on UCT radio. This song was subsequently made available as a free download from MWeb and has been very successful on the MWeb/SAmp3.com charts after it was used again in a subsequent episode.

In 2005, Natalia also began performing more often, now purely as a solo artist with vocal and her trademark Fender Stratocaster guitar, playing her own songs. During the year she played a series of live solo gigs at various music venues in Cape Town, sharing a stage with a wide range of Cape Town artists.

The Cape Town venues that she has performed at include The Independent Armchair Theatre, Obz Café, The Barleycorn Club at The Riverclub in Observatory, Constantia Nek Resturant, Joburg Bar, Rafikis, Opium, and Baraza in Camps Bay.

During the year, Natalia has shared these stages with artists like Chris Tait, Flat Stanley, Guy Buttery, Nibs Van Der Spuy, Steve Fataar (ex The Flames), Tara Fataar, Emily Bruce, The Dave Stark Band, Rubbish Child, Tristin Waterkyn, Rael Goodman, Simon van Gend, Matthew Davidson, Anika, Black India, and others.

On October 1st 2005, Natalia played the support slot for Rodriguez at the Dorp Street Theatre in Stellenbosch during the cult American musician's short South African tour.

In November Van Zyl, the new Afrikaans sibling pop group from Worcester in the Western Cape, released their debut album on the Street Level/SonyBMG label. The album included an excellent and rocking Afrikaans version of Natalia's song, 'Girlfriend'.

Natalia finished off the year with a short residency at Baraza, the hip bar on the Camps Bay strip. There she unveiled some of her new songs that will be among the tracks lined up for her first album, due to be recorded during 2006. These songs include 'Game Over', 'Different Fonts', 'Till I Love You', and 'Mondays Out Fridays In'.

Influences:

Among Natalia's many special musical influences are PJ Harvey, Missy Higgins, Rodriguez, Beth Orton, Ben Kweller, Francois Hardy, Dionne Warwick, Janis Joplin, Bic Runga, Lucinda Williams, Magnet, Patti Smith, The Beatles, Shelby Lynne, Tori Amos, The Doors, The Arcade Fire, Razorlight, Turin Brakes, Ray Lamontagne, Bob Dylan, and '70's punk like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Blondie, The Sundays and, of course, The Clash ("She's in love with rock and roll Whooah!").

2006

With one year of a Business Science degree at UCT completed, Natalia has decided that 2006 is the year to pursue her music career on a full time basis. In January she formed a side project with Josh Grierson (of Emokid Josh, Neshamah, and Lovehunter). Their Nu-Folk duo is called Signal Hill and together they perform a set that includes both Josh' and Natalia's original material. They both sing and play guitar on the tracks and consistently breathe new life into each other's work. Signal Hill played their first live gig at Opium in Green Point, supporting the up-and-coming New York-based SA artist Yoav, and received a warm response.

For the first part of the year, Natalia is concentrating her efforts on recording and has been working with Garin and Jaimee, two hot, young producers at City Varsity. In March, Natalia played her debut live performance at Zula Bar supporting local folk rocker Simon Van Gend and his band.

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"At The Foot Of The Master"