Mathilde Santing (Mathilde Eleveld) was born in Amstelveen on 24 October 1958. At home, the family was always listening to music. For young Mathilde, a special music room and dance floor were made where she could listen to the music from her tape recorder. At the age of 5 she started music lessons at the Amstelveen Music School. From eleven to nineteen she took singing lessons from Elisabeth Ooms. During her secondary school years she played in various bands of her brothers and performed in cafés with a pianist. First still as Mathilde Eleveld, but later as Mathilde Santing, after her mother's maiden name.
She gained national fame in 1981 through her performances in the television programme Sonja op maandag by Sonja Barend. Her debut came out the following year, the 10-inch record Mathilde Santing, with songs by among others Rodgers & Hart, Haven Gillespie and Todd Rundgren.
Since the beginning of her career, Mathilde Santing has belonged to the group of Dutch artists of whom you hear little in the media, but who have a quiet success.
Santing started her career as a solo artist with performances where she accompanied herself on a synthesizer with built-in rhythm box. She first gained fame through an appearance on the talk show of Sonja Barend. Afterwards she managed to arrange the support act for Randy Newman. In 1997 Mathilde Santing scored two hits with 'Beautiful People' and 'Inspiratie'. The latter song is from the musical Joe.
Hit single
In March 1999 she had her first top ten hit with the song Wonderful Life, a cover of Black, which stayed at number five.
Visit to Groede
The performance planned for 2020 is postponed by a month or so due to Covid19.
On 31 January 2021 Mathilde was our guest as Sunday Morning Classic with the album Breast and Brow.
source NPO and Wikipedia photo: Irma van Rijswijk and Paul Luberti
