Anne Menden, born on October 5, 1985, in Troisdorf, is a German actress and singer. In 1998, at the age of 13, Menden recorded her first CD featuring folk music. A year later, she voiced trailers for the children's program Toggo on Super RTL and had a small role in the opera Rigoletto at the Cologne Opera House. In 2001, she released her first English-language pop CD under her stage name Avendra. After obtaining her secondary school diploma at the Kopernikus Realschule in Hennef, she applied to the Cologne Theatre Academy and was admitted in 2003 as the academy's (then) youngest student, but she dropped out after three semesters without completing her degree.