Loreena McKennitt

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Loreena McKennitt

Background information
Birth name Loreena McKennitt
Born 17 February 1957 (1957-02-17) (age 52)
Morden, Manitoba, Canada
Genre(s) Celtic, World, New Age
Occupation(s) Musician, Songwriter, Producer
Instrument(s) Voice, Piano, Harp, Accordion
Voice type(s) Soprano [1]
Years active 1985 - Present
Label(s) Quinlan Road
Warner Bros. Records
Verve Forecast/Universal Records

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM, (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist and pianist most famous for writing, recording and performing world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is well known for her soprano vocals. [2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

McKennitt was born in Morden, Manitoba of Irish and Scottish descent to parents Jack and Irene McKennitt (a livestock dealer and a nurse). She moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1981, where she currently lives.

When Loreena was young she wanted to become a veterinarian but she found that music chose her rather than she it.[3] Developing a passion for Celtic music, she learned to play the Celtic harp and began busking at various places, one well known place being St. Lawrence Market in Toronto in order to earn money needed for publishing her first album.[4]

[edit] Career

Her first album, Elemental, was released in 1985, followed by To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987), Parallel Dreams (1989), The Visit (1991), The Mask and Mirror (1994), A Winter Garden (1995), The Book of Secrets (1997), An Ancient Muse (2006) and A Midwinter Night’s Dream (2008). All of her work has been released under her own label, Quinlan Road.

In 1993, her music became known to a wider audience when she toured Europe supporting Mike Oldfield. In 1995, her version of the traditional Irish song "Bonny Portmore" was prominently featured in the film Highlander 3, causing a large increase of album sales among fans of the films. McKennitt's single "The Mummers' Dance" was a widespread success, receiving considerable airplay in North American markets during the spring of 1997, and was used as the theme song for the short-lived TV series, Legacy.

Her music has also appeared in the movies The Santa Clause, Soldier, Jade, Holy Man, The Mists of Avalon, Tinkerbell, and in the television series Roar and Due South.

[edit] Personal life

In 1998, McKennitt's fiancé, Ronald Rees; his brother Richard; and their close friend Gregory Cook, drowned during a boating incident on Georgian Bay. She was deeply affected by the event and subsequently founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in the same year.

At the time of the incident, she was working on an album of two live performances called Live in Paris and Toronto. The proceeds from the sales of that album were donated to the newly created fund, totaling some 3 million dollars. [5] After the release of the live album, McKennitt decided to substantially reduce the number of public performances and did not release any new recordings until the studio album An Ancient Muse in 2006.

[edit] Honors

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[edit] Genre and work

McKennitt's music has generally been classified as World / Celtic music even though it contains aspects and characteristics of music from around the globe and is sometimes classified as Folk music in record stores.

Before McKennitt composes any music, she engages in considerable research on a specific subject which then forms the general concept of the album. Before creating Elemental and Parallel Dreams, she traveled to Ireland for inspiration from the country's history, folklore, geography and culture. The album The Mask and Mirror was preceded by research in Spain where she engaged in studying Galicia, a Celtic section of Spain, along with its abundant Arabic roots. The result was an album including elements of Celtic and Arabic music. According to the notes of her latest album, An Ancient Muse was inspired primarily by travels among and reading about the various cultures along the Silk Road.

McKennitt is often compared to Enya, but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations, using literary works as sources of lyrics and springboards for interpretation such as "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, "Prospero's Speech" (the final soliloquy in William Shakespeare's The Tempest), "Snow" by Archibald Lampman, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross, William Blake's "Lullaby", Yeats' "The Stolen Child", and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.

[edit] Court case

Main article: McKennitt v Ash

In 2005, McKennitt was involved in an acrimonious court case in England when her former friend and employee, Niema Ash, published a book which contained intimate details of their friendship. McKennitt argued that much of the book contained confidential personal information, which Ash had no right to publish. The English courts found that there had indeed been a breach of confidence and a misuse of McKennitt's private information, and the case is likely to set important precedents in English law on the privacy of celebrities.[6] The House of Lords affirmed the lower court's decisions in 2007.[7]

[edit] 2006 and since

In September 2006, McKennitt performed live at the Alhambra. The performance premiered on PBS and in August 2007 was released on a three-disc DVD/CD set entitled Nights from the Alhambra.

In 2008, McKennitt composed the song entitled To The Fairies They Draw Near as the theme song for Disney's direct to video animated film Tinker Bell. The film makers were so impressed with her, that they asked her to do the narration for the film.[8]

In the Spring of that same year, she returned to Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios to record A Midwinter Night’s Dream, an extended version of A Winter Garden (1995). The album was released on October 28.[9]

Since the release of An Ancient Muse Loreena has toured consistently, with a European and North American tour in the Spring of 2007, an extensive cross Canada and United States tour in the fall of 2007, a summer tour of Europe in 2008 and a Mediterranean tour in the summer of 2009, with stops in Greece (concerts were postponed, but finally held in late June)[10], Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Hungary and Italy.

[edit] Documentaries

McKennitt created No Journey's End, a half-hour documentary, for American television. In it, she discusses the influences behind her music. No Journey's End contains excerpts from several songs from the albums Parallel Dreams, The Visit, and The Mask and Mirror. It also shows live performances of the songs "The Lady of Shalott", "Santiago", and "The Dark Night of the Soul". It was later released as both a DVD and VHS, the former also containing music videos for "The Mummers' Dance" and "The Bonny Swans". A bonus copy of the DVD was included with the 2004 remastered versions of McKennitt's CDs.

In 2008, Loreena released A Moveable Musical Feast, a unique souvenir of Loreena McKennitt’s 2007 An Ancient Muse tour with a rare backstage look. The DVD includes interviews with Loreena, her band, crew, fans and professional colleagues from the Canadian music industry. Loreena and her fellow travellers describe their stories of how her show ‘goes up’, discuss the joys and challenges of their nomadic life when ‘on the road’ and share their thoughts on the creative relationships they have with each other, the music and the audience.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Live Albums

[edit] EPs

[edit] Singles

[edit] Videos

  • The Mummers' Dance (1997)
  • The Bonny Swans
  • Loreena McKennitt: Nights from the Alhambra (2007, Live concert in Spain premiered on PBS)[12]
  • A Moveable Musical Feast (2008, A tour documentary from Loreena's 2007 North American Tour)[13]

[edit] Other

[edit] References

  1. ^ Loreena McKennitt.
  2. ^ Loreena McKennitt.
  3. ^ http://www.quinlanroad.com
  4. ^ If You Must, Label Her 'Enlightened' Pop music: Loreena McKennitt, who performs in Irvine tonight, sings ethereal material, but don't pigeonhole the harpist as New Age.", L.A. Times, November 29, 1994
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ Publicity-shy singer wins privacy claim
  7. ^ Loreena McKennitt and Niema Ash - Press Release - 30 March 2007
  8. ^ Loreena sings theme song and narrates Disney’s Tinker Bell - 5 July 2008
  9. ^ A Midwinter Night's Dream Loreena’s newest recording for the winter season set for release October 2008 - 7 October 2008
  10. ^ [2]
  11. ^ "50th Grammy Awards". http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/50th_show/list.aspx#16. Retrieved on 2008-02-11. 
  12. ^ Quinlan Road - Explore The Music - Nights From The Alhambra
  13. ^ [3]

[edit] External links

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