Sydney born Nicole Schleicher has loved music and the performing arts ever since a young age, beginning as a shameless show off and eventually moving on to deft Abba impersonations, through 3 years at the Australian Children's Theatre School and onto numerous amateur musicals throughout high school. For a brief period of time she entertained dreams of being a lawyer, and started a combined Arts/Law degree at Sydney University. Fortunately, the insanity of this path became evident in the midst of mind-numbing lectures, and Nicole discontinued her legal studies and (incredibly) finished her Arts degree. While at university Nicole worked part-time in the disability sector, and after she graduated from university became a group home manager, managing several homes for adults with intellectual and physical disabilities.

During this time, Nicole attended St Pauls Anglican Church in Castle Hill, a large church in the middle of the bible-belt in north-western Sydney. At the age of 19 she was asked to lead and develop the music ministry there, along with a drama ministry - this kept her extremely busy for the next 4 years. Okay, that's an understatement - it was one of the most challenging, joyful, heart-breaking, spirit-filled times in her life. By the end of that time St Paul's had moved from a conservative, traditional approach to worship to one that was more creative and contemporary. Nicole was also burnt out, having just finished the first year of an MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management. It was time to move on to a new and exciting chapter in her life (sorry, that sounded a bit like a bad hallmark card.)

Nicole did the typical Australian thing and went overseas on a working holiday for 2 and a half years. Most of this time was spent in London and Switzerland - the latter for 12 months living in a Christian community called L'Abri (www.labri.com). Before she left Sydney, Nicole was given a verse from a very dear friend of hers that was to become like a theme for that year, from Hosea 2 v 14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt".

L'Abri was established by Francis Schaeffer over 45 years ago as a safe place for people to ask their questions about God and explore a more integrated approach to living as a Christian in a way that engages the world rather than excludes it. Nicole had no doubt that Switzerland was where she was meant to be, and what started out as 3 months became 12 months exploring the meaning of her faith independent of any church dogma, the relationship between Christianity and the Arts, all manner of usually taboo topics but most importantly, the meaning of choosing the path of Christ every day. It was a year that changed her life, a true gift from God and a potent and undeniable demonstration of God's love for her.

Somewhat reluctantly, after travelling around Western Europe, Israel and the U.S. Nicole returned home and picked up her management career. She began working at The Smith Family (www.smithfamily.org.au) and returned to St Pauls where she was invited to lead worship again. While Nicole was overseas the music ministry had continued to flourish, and for the first time she experienced the joy of leading worship without the burden of responsibility for the whole ministry. It felt as though she had re-claimed her 'first love' - and she took her first tentative steps towards songwriting.

Nicole's first song, inspired by Psalm 86 - "Great is Your Love" - went on to be the title track of St Paul's first album. Her 3 next songs "Awesome and Great", "To bless Your holy name" and "Lament", were also recorded on the CD. She went on to lead over 4000 people singing "To Bless.." at the first Prom Praise held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. This was an incredible, albeit surreal experience.

Nicole has been writing and performing ever since. Her penchant for soul and gospel music has seen her perform in a number of stage musicals, cabaret shows and in a girl group "The Supreme Experience" doing the club circuit. She is inspired by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Fiona Apple, U2 and Jeff Buckley. She loves art, theatre and film and is currently nursing an obsessive disorder that compels her to buy DVDs - particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer box sets - taking her collection to numbers well over what would be considered normal.

Currently she is working as a Manager at Wesley Mission (www.wesleymission.org.au) looking after a bunch of very talented aged care services professionals, and is attending a small church in her beloved home town of Balmain. Her worship music is being sung in churches around Australia and overseas, and a number of her songs have been re-recorded by Christian artists such as the Green Valley Youth Choir in Sydney, and Diane Petherick in Northern Ireland.

In late 2003 she released her very own EP "Out of the Valley", and she is suitably terrified at the prospect of rejection on a grand scale.... though strangely calm too.

She thinks it's time to buy another DVD.