About Christina Perri
Christina Perri [b. 1986] was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Bensalem, Pennsylvania, and has made a career for herself as a singer and a songwriter. Although neither of her parents was especially musical, they encouraged her to take piano lessons as early as age eight. Her older brother, Nick Perri, a guitarist with such groups as Silvertide, Shinedown—plus several others—clearly influenced her exposure to the music industry. Perri received a scholarship to the University of the Arts in her native Philadelphia, but she only attended classes there for a year before changing course and deciding to make a career as a songwriter. She is a self-taught guitarist from the age of 16.
After moving to Los Angeles when she turned 21, Perri went through a marriage and a divorce over the course of a mere 18 months. It was during this period that she signed a professional contract with Bill Silva Management, based primarily on the strength of a number of YouTube videos she had recorded. These feature covers of mainstream pop tunes but also quite a few original songs. The personal angst she experienced during this period has continued to be a major influence on her music, notably her breakthrough hit, “Jar of Hearts.” This song received its first nationwide exposure on a June 2010 broadcast of the television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.” While Perri did not sing her song on the air—that honor went to the duo Kathryn McCormick and Billy Bell—her own performance of the piece topped the 100,000-download mark within a month of its appearance on the show. She subsequently appeared on various late-night talk shows, and this popularity was a driving force behind her signing a recording contract with Atlantic Records only a month after the “Dance” program aired.
Perri’s debut album, lovestrong, features a dozen songs that have been called “brutally honest gems.” Her second single, “A Thousand Years,” was selected as one of the songs for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn–Part I movie soundtrack, which premiered in theatres in November 2011.
