TALIA WITTMANN - VOCALS, GUITAR
TALIA ALANA WITTMANN, winner of the 2008 TOYOTA STAR MAKER QUEST, was born November 23rd 1984 in Adelaide, South Australia.
She is the youngest of four children. Talia's father Manfred immigrated to Australia with his family in 1953 from Germany, her mother Rosalee was born in Australia. Talia has two sisters, Sasha and Shana, and a brother Karl.
Talia grew up in the small town of Verdun in the Adelaide Hills on her parents' property. Her interests as a child included dancing, playing sport, riding horses and motorbikes.
During primary school, Talia also took up singing and guitar lessons and competed in various talent quests winning various placings.
In 1998, Talia started her high school education at Modbury High where she studied subjects like biology, chemistry and geography, achieving an amazing tertiary entrance rank of 95.05. At the year 12 prize giving assembly, Talia was awarded a special prize for geography and also finished the event off with a wonderful solo singing performance. While in her final year of high school, Talia began recording and at the age of 18, she released her first EP.
In 2003, Talia completed Certificate III in music at TAFE and began to concentrate solely on her music. She went on to study a Bachelor of Music by correspondence for 12 months through the Mackay Conservatorium of Music and then moved to Mackay for a further semester of study on campus.
During her studies, Talia worked various jobs to support her musical career, including as a jewellery wholesaler customer service assistant, behind hotel bars, as a childcare assistant and in the local pub and festival scene with her band or as a duo.
Among Talia's many achievements, she placed third out of more than 500 entrants in the Australian Country Music Busking Championship in Tamworth in January 2005 and won the 2006 Rockhampton Telstra Road to Tamworth heat. She is a graduate of the 2007 CMAA Australian College of Country Music and in 2008 won the highly sought after and prestigious Toyota Star Maker title.
