I started singing when I was six and I knew I wanted to be a performer. I was born in Georgia and raised in Russia and even after moving to New Zealand, sixteen years ago, I didn’t realise I could pursue my dreams, I kind of forgot about it. During covid I had a lot of spare time because my job at House of Travel was suspended due to travel restrictions.

I entered a karaoke competition online and won a prize to record a music video – it was a life changing experience for me. I was inspired to write an original song, called ‘Iron curtain’, which was liberating and gave me the chance to address my childhood trauma and incorporated my experience with linguistics, Russian literature and poetry.

After that I decided to study a singing and songwriting degree, at Ara Music Arts. It was really hard studying as an adult with other responsibilities, but it was definitely worth it. I really loved ‘Jazz school’ (Ara), it was like a second home and the tutors were so lovely.

I’ve written a musical called ‘You Are The Boss’, based on my life and things that have been missing – like freedom of choice and being who you are without people holding you back. There’s a special song in the musical called ‘Broken Crayons’ that is a gift to my mum about the freedom to speak your mind. The journey of writing a song is like therapy – you’re solving a problem and it’s helped me to come out of my shell, which inspired my song ‘Turtle’.

I’ve learned lots of new instruments as a songwriter and producer, but it’s like learning a new language, once you know one instrument it’s easy to learn another. Now I run QueenB Music and offer ‘combo lessons’, so students can learn two instruments to improve their skills.

My stage name ‘QueenB’ encompasses my love of Queen music, ‘B’ for Bella, but also the idea of a worker-bee working hard. My motto is to learn something new everyday and with patience, passion and persistence you will eventually succeed, it just takes time.”