Freya Ridings

Freya Olivia Rose Ridings (born 18 April 1994) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

The song was also eligible to be nominated for best original song at the 96th Academy Awards, though it didn’t get nominated and the award eventually went to What Was I Made For? from Barbie.

Ridings rose to prominence in 2017 with her ballad, "Lost Without You", which became a top ten hit on the UK Singles Chart.

Ridings released her debut single, "Blackout", on 5 May 2017.

She released the single "Maps" (a cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs hit) on 30 June 2017.

On 22 September 2017 she released her debut live album Live at St Pancras Old Church.

After releasing the album she went on to her first full headline tour in the UK.

She spent most of 2017 supporting the likes of Tears for Fears, Tash Sultana and Lewis Capaldi.

She released "Lost Without You" on 3 November 2017.

The song peaked at number 9 in the UK Singles Chart, after being featured on the reality show Love Island in July 2018.

It was subsequently chosen by Scott Mills' as his 'Tune of the Week' on his Radio 1 show in August 2018.

She released her second live album, Live at Omeara, on 30 March 2018.

She released the single "Ultraviolet" on 15 June 2018.

She followed this with the release of her debut extended play, You Mean the World to Me (2019).

Her self-titled debut album was supported by the single "Castles", which would become her international breakthrough.

Freya Olivia Rose Ridings was raised in North London and grew up in Palmers Green.

She is the daughter of English actor and musician Richard Ridings, and learned guitar from watching him play.

She attended St Christopher School in Letchworth, followed by the BRIT School from the age of 16.

Ridings has dyslexia.

In November 2022, she married folk singer Ewan J. Phillips after getting engaged two and a half months earlier.

In 2019, she released the single "You Mean the World to Me", which was re-produced by Greg Kurstin, followed by an extended play of the same name.

She also announced her self-titled debut album, with an original release date of 31 May 2019, but it was pushed back to 19 July 2019.

On 29 June 2019 Ridings played a set on the John Peel Stage at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival, after the festival founder Michael Eavis personally attended one of her concerts in Bristol.

In March 2020, Ridings toured Australia for the first time, performing shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

In January 2023, Ridings released her first single in three years, "Weekends".

This was followed by the announcement that her second studio album, Blood Orange, would be released on 5 May 2023; this was subsequently brought forward to 28 April 2023 and would coincide with a number of album release parties at several venues around the UK.

Ridings was due to perform at the Coronation Concert, marking the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023, but she pulled out at the last minute aftre contracting an unknown illness.

In June 2023, Ridings co-wrote (alongside her husband) and performed the song Rise for the film Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken, and performed the song live for the very first time at Dreamworks’s Glendale campus, in which she also performed some songs from her album Blood Orange (which is also the first time she performed new material in the US).

Ridings herself loved the song so much, that a few months later, she recorded a live version of Rise for the live album Blood Orange (Live at the Apollo), which was released in December 2023.