Hera Hjartardottir was born in in Reyjavik, Iceland and her family moved to Christchurch when she was 13 . She started learning classical guitar at age 8 and then jazz guitar after a neighbour taught her how to ply Girl From Ipanema . Once she learned how to play and sing at the same time she began writing her own songs . At 16 she released her first album HOMEMADE so named because it was recorded at home.
Two years later Hera released her second independently produced album Not So Sweet and her career started to take off after a track from it Itchy Palms was chosen as the title track for the award winning Icelandic film HAFIO (The Sea) . The song resulted in her being nominated for 2 awards at the 2002 Icelandic Music Awards. She won for best female singer - a category that had only ever been won by Bjork or Emilana Torrini in the 10 year history of the awards .
Her song Makebelieve from her 3rd album Not Your type was a finalist in the 2002 USA Songwriting Competition and became the third most plated song on Icelandic National Radio in 2003 .
She has toured the world supporting artists as Joe Cocker, Nick Cave, Amanda Palmer and the Dresden dolls and has played both the Glastonbury and SXSW festivals.
