Amira's teachers

When Amira auditioned on Holland's Got Talent in 2013, at the age of nine, she had never had a singing lesson in her life. She had learned simply by watching YouTube videos on a laptop and imitating the mouth movements and sounds. 

When asked by judge Chantal Janzen, who is a singer, about her training Amira appeared nervous as if she might be disqualified. She admitted she had never had a lesson. This is a famous fact.

One could say the great singers of the world like Andre Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, and Maria Callas had been Amira's first teachers, even if she never met them. But this was far from the end of the story. After Amira's audition, the studio immediately rushed her into singing classes with the Holland's Got Talent staff to prepare her for the semifinal and final. Amira of course won the entire contest with more than 50% of the national vote. Part of her prize was a three year contract with Sony. Sony assigned Amira a voice coach, Maike Van der Wiel, who worked with her on her first two albums. But Sony was not satisfied with simply a coach. They also paid for her to receive four masterclasses with the well respected opera teacher Henny Diemer. After two albums Amira's voice coach Maike refused to continue teaching her opera out of fear it would hurt her voice. The family promptly went looking for another teacher and found Marijke Hoksbergen, a highly trained opera teacher in the Netherlands. In Marijke Amira had at last found someone she felt very comfortable with. This teaching relationship lasted until Amira moved to S. Africa in 2017. In S. Africa her new vocal coach was Suzette Wilkens. But over time Amira showed signs of needing some special attention for her voice. On a trip back to Europe she ran into her old teacher Marijke and they rebonded. Marijke agreed to coach Amira through her two streaming concerts, working over Skype between the Netherlands and S. Africa. I should add three other teachers from whom Amira received masterclasses over the years. The first was Andre Rieu, who famously invited her for a masterclass immediately after her audition.

Later she travelled to the Hague and received masterclasses with the well known opera singer Miranda van Kralingen. And she received special sessions with Corlea Botha on her third Album in Africa. And that sums it up. Many still think Amira is fully self-taught to this day. Far from it. She has received some of the finest coaching and training in Europe and Africa.