Mirusia Louwerse (born 29 March 1985) is a Dutch Australian soprano. She performs as 'Mirusia' and is seen by the Australian press as "The Unconventional Pop Star" Louwerse was born in the Brisbane suburb of Birkdale. She graduated in December 2006 from the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane obtaining a Bachelor of Music in Performance in Classical Voice. In 2006, Louwerse became the youngest ever winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Opera Award and went on to record a debut album entitled She Walks in Beauty. Louwerse is a lyric soprano and has performed in such operas as Mozart's The Magic Flute, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges and Britten's Albert Herring. Her aunt, who lives in the Netherlands, contacted André Rieu to tell him about her niece's talent. He listened to her voice on her website and phoned her straight away and two days later she was standing before him in his studio ready to sing. She has been touring with Dutch violinist and conductor André Rieu since 2007 as soprano soloist. She is of Dutch descent and can speak Dutch fluently. In May 2008, André Rieu and Louwerse released an album entitled Waltzing Matilda in Australia which made it to the number one position on the Australian music charts and went platinum within 10 days. Her album Always and Forever was released in Australia on 8 October 2010, and went straight to #1 on the ARIA classical charts[citation needed] and #17 on the ARIA Pop Charts. It was also released in The Netherlands in December 2010 and reached #26 on the Dutch Pop Charts.[citation needed] Her DVD 'Always & Forever' was released in March 2011 and stayed at the #1 position on the ARIA DVD Charts for 4 weeks. Louwerse is an ambassador for the Australian Children's Music Foundation and believes strongly that if children are exposed to music or are involved in music, they will grow up to be better human beings. In 2009, Louwerse participated in a concert to raise funds for the ACMF, which raised $100,000 for music in schools in Australia.[ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.