"I was wearing these big green glasses and was nervous as anything behind the microphone. Stiff as a board,'' she laughed.
Back then, Wiebke lived in Michelbach, a rural village of just 1500 people in Germany.
Now, the mother-of-two boys, Lewis (4) and Milos (2), lives in Dunedin, where she works full-time at the Otago University's Centre for Science Communication.
Wiebke (33) is still singing about the wind and one of her new songs, Windblown, features on a new CD of the same name, which she recorded live with her band, Vebka, at the Fortune Theatre late last year.
The song wraps up an evocative film about Dunedin dancer, Shona Dunlop MacTavish called Wind Dancer, which Wiebke and fellow Otago University filmmaker Lloyd Spencer Davis are screening at this week's Festival of Colour in Wanaka.
Mrs MacTavish (89) of Dunedin is regarded by many as a "kaumatua (elder) of dance'' and her career was shaped by the major political events of the 20th century.
In Windblown, Wiebke sings about the winds of change in life.
It was not just a direct response to meeting the remarkable Mrs MacTavish (see Otago Daily Times, Language of Dance, 21 February 2009), who Wiebke thought was "a beautiful woman with a beautiful attitude to life''.
It also refers to things going on in her own life parallel to making Wind Dancer, Wiebke said.
Becoming friends with Mrs MacTavish and making the film was a significant experience in her life, coming at a time when Wiebke was making a serious return to her first love of music.
Wiebke took inspiration from Mrs MacTavish, whose attitude to life had more sparkle than that of many 20-year-olds, Wiebke said.
"She has got the right attitude to life. You just make the best you can,'' Wiebke said.
Returning to music was a long process Wiebke says she could not have fully realised without the support of her husband, Warren.
When Wiebke was 11, she formed a teenage cover band with friends and practiced religiously every week for two performances a year.
During those practices, she developed an ear for close harmonies, a soulful vocal technique and learned classical guitar.
But her parents were not particularly creative or artistic and Wiebke felt she was the odd one out in the family.
She developed a passion for science and the natural world and eventually thought she would like to study marine science in Canada or Alaska.
Otago University was on her back-up list and she was delighted when her Masters degree application was accepted 10 years ago.
She still visited Canada, produced a masters thesis on the impact of whale-watching at Seattle Islands on animals and humans, and then enrolled in the university's science communication film-making course.
In Dunedin, she met and made a film about Purakaunui instrument maker Ian Davies, Singing Wood, with university colleague Sina Wood.
That was one of many student films to screen at the 2007 Wild South International Film Festival, a sister event to the Festival of Colour.
Writing music for more films interests her, as does performing at other festivals, writing more songs, making more CDs and, of course, making more films and communicating science.
She has found her feet and there will not be any more holding back.
"Music has always been there but for a long time I never had the courage to take it further.
But then I thought, I had better do it now,'' she said.
- Vebka (Wiebke Hendry, vocals/guitar; Rob Waddell, guitar; Gary Moss, bass) plays at the Festival of Colour tonight (Thursday) at 11pm at the Infinity Crystal Palace. Vebka also performs at Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin on Saturday (May 2) at 8pm.
- Wind Dancer, a Creative New Zealand-funded film by Lloyd Spencer Davis and Wiebke Hendry, screens for the final time at Cinema Paradiso on Friday May 1 at 2pm.
