Mary-Jess Leaverland (born 28 March 1990), or simply Mary-Jess, is an English singer and songwriter[1] who won Min Xing Chang Fan Tian (or in English: I Want to Sing to the Stars), the Chinese version of The X Factor, which was televised to 70 million people in December 2009.

Mary-Jess advanced through Min Xing Chang Fan Tian (or in English: I Want to Sing to the Stars) all the way to the final, where she won the grand prize after competing live on Chinese television every night for three weeks.

The Music and Chinese Studies course at the University of Sheffield took Leaverland to Nanjing, and when she by chance came across auditions for the talent competition she wanted to get involved.

[8] In December 2011, she appeared as a soloist on the BBC Songs of Praise broadcast from All Saints' Church, Cheltenham,[9] and again on Easter Sunday, in April 2012.

[14] In 2016, she conducted a short teaching tour of Suzhou, Lanzhou and Hangzhou, China with the British Council as part of The GREAT Britain Campaign.

In 2019, Mary-Jess sang in the new year with Katherine Jenkins, Aled Jones, Shane Filan, and many other special guests for BBC Songs of Praise’s ‘The Big Sing’ from the Royal Albert Hall to a viewing audience of two million people.

[17] Mary-Jess is a member of the Royal British Legion Gloucester City Branch, patron of The Door Youth Project, and she is an ambassador for Half the Sky, a charity that helps orphaned and abandoned children in China.