Florence Hartigan

Florence Hartigan is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, poet, former violin prodigy and self-professed pea-knuckle champion who was born in New York and grew up in New Zealand. Her sound is Joni Mitchell meets Feist and her lyrics are pure poetry. Florence will make you forget where you are but remember why you are here… and she’ll always keep you guessing.

Florence spent her childhood resenting violin practice and passionately singing along to the Phantom of the Opera, until at age 14 she discovered Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan. After that came her first guitar and the rest, as they say, is history.

Florence started performing her original music in college, and in 2005, a member of that college band, ‘Harry’ entered their song in an “Idol”-style nationwide songwriting competition called “TV2 Songstar”. From thousands of entries from all around the country, their song was one of the 4 chosen for the competition.

This meant Florence and her co-writer, Peter Martin, recording their single, ‘Green’ - working with NZ musical institution Don McGlashan as producer (Don recently finished a US tour with his band “Don McGlashan and the Seven Sisters” and Crowded House).

The single was then played on nationwide radio network ZM and on TV2 during the competition. It was while performing her song live on national television that Florence realized her musical talent could be something she took beyond her living room and student bars.

Post-‘Songstar’, Florence’s musical career continued to gather momentum, seeing her gigging regularly around Auckland, playing alongside high profile NZ music industry figures such as Adeaze and ‘Opshop’s Jason Kerrison. Her songwriting and performing talents were also sought in creating music for film and television including popular TV series “The Market”, Roseanne Liang’s recent film “Auditions I Have Known” and her award-winning documentary “Banana in a Nutshell” (soon to be a feature film).

In mid 2006, (a mere month before her planned departure to Los Angeles) Florence got together a group of talented musicians including Nephew’s Johnny Barker, Sole Survivor’s Vanessa McGowan, The Septembers’ Justin (JJ) James, and Barrage’s Jessica Hindin and produced and performed a live concert at the beautiful Hopetoun Alpha in Auckland. This also resulted Florence’s first album – ‘Florence Hartigan and the Wayward Five, Live at the Hopetoun Alpha’. The album single “Green” was added to the Kiwi fm regular playlist, no small feat for a brand-new independent artist.

Florence is now based in LA, where she has played in various venues such as the Rainbow Room at the Rainbow Bar and Grill on Hollywood’s Sunset strip, The Pig N Whistle and M-Bar in Hollywood, and O’Brien’s in Santa Monica. She also recently performed and was interviewed on TV Show "Backstage LA".