Barbara WeldensFrench singer Barbara Weldens died unexpectedly while performing onstage during a concert in her native France Wednesday night. She was 35.
The cause of her death remains unknown and is speculated to be electrocution, as she performed barefoot, or cardiac arrest. An investigation has been opened and an autopsy will be performed, according to La Parisien.
She was performing in a church in the French village of Goudron as part of the Léo Ferré Festival when she collapsed onstage, local reports stated. Paramedics rushed to her aid but were unable to revive her.
Weldens won the first prize in the Jacques Brel Festival's Young Talents 2016 contest and the Pic D'Or prize and released her debut album, Le grand H de l'homme. Weldens was set to perform across France and Belgium over the coming months.
"Our team is deeply disturbed by the brutal disappearance of the artist who had appeared on the stage of the Theater des Nouveaux on 20 May, during our last edition," the organizers of the Pic D'Or prize said in a statement, according to The Independent. "She was a radiant woman, talented and full of energy, and of course we are thinking of all her family and her loved ones."
Weldens grew up in circuses, learning juggling, acrobatics, and trapeze with her parents, and was also a poet, according to her website.