Barbara Weldens (born Barbara Jacquinot, 17 April 1982^[1] – 19 July 2017) was a French singer-songwriter. After releasing her first studio album, Le grand H de l'homme (Man with a capital M), in February 2017, she died on stage the following July while performing at a festival.

Weldens was from Hérault and grew up in the circus,^[2] where she learned juggling, acrobatics and trapeze.^[3] She trained as a pianist at the conservatory in Sète, and earned a licence in musicology from the Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III in 2004.^[4] In 2015 she won the Tremplin Découverte Chanson de Pause Guitare and in 2016 the Pic d'Or de la Chanson at Tarbes,^[3][4] the young talent award at the 2016 Jacques Brel festival^[2][5] and the prix révélation scène of the Académie Charles-Cros.^[6][7]

Inspired by Jacques Brel, Weldens was a singer in the chanson réaliste tradition.^[6] She often performed in a trio with Barbara Hammadi on piano and Marion Diaques on violin.^[3] On 3 February 2017, with Hammadi and Diaques, she released her first studio album, Le grand H de l'homme (Man with a capital M);^[2][5][7] one reviewer wrote of it as "a coherent, profound, [and] powerful whole",^[8] and another spoke of the precision and balance of her lyrics.^[3]

Weldens was on tour and was performing in a church in the town of Gourdon in south-west France for the festival Léo Ferré when she collapsed on stage at about midnight on 19 July 2017 and was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest. She was 35.^[2][5][6][7] An autopsy confirmed that she had been electrocuted; she normally performed barefoot, and her foot made contact with a defective piece of electrical equipment.^[9]