"Initially they wanted one composer for each episode but then we put forward March Of The Celts - they came back saying we want to you to write all of them," says Enya.
#ENYA ALBUM 2008 SERIES#
Two years later a more significant development saw Enya provide the entire soundtrack to the BBC television documentary series The Celts. The first project the triumvirate worked on was a soundtrack for David Puttnam's 1984 film The Frog Prince. This all lead to the creative partnership of Nicky, Enya and Roma in 1982. He comes from live music and I hope people can sense that in what we do, even though And Winter Came is very much a studio album, it is all about performance."
He was so into experimenting with all types of music.
I talked a lot about music with Nicky and this is when he had the idea of the choir of one. Nicky wanted me as keyboard player and as another vocal texture in the band which I agreed to. "I wasn't really involved as a member of the group. "I had come from studying classical music at boarding school and was fiercely independent," recalls Enya. After she left college, she was invited by Nicky and Roma, who were then managing the group Clannad, to join the group on a temporary basis. "I enjoy the sounds of language, it's great to be able to sing in a very old language like Gaeilge but still be able to get the message across through the melody and performance."Įnya studied classical music at Milford College and it was always her intention to be involved in music but she didn't know what direction that would take. "Because of that my alphabet pronunciation is different to that of someone who speaks English as a first language," she explains. The sixth ( see note below) of nine Children, Enya was born Eithne Patricia Ni Bhraonian on in County Donegal, and was brought up speaking Gaeilge, Enya being a transliteration of the Gaeilge pronunciation of Eithne.
Previous Enya albums have seen her exercise a remarkable linguistic dexterity to perform songs written in anything from Welsh and Japanese to an entirely fictional dialect devised by Roma called Loxian, on 2005's Amarantine LP, And Winter Came's ten original pieces are all sung in English. "I enjoy the process, I love the excitement of not knowing if it will work," admits Enya. The new rendering of Oíche Chiuín (Chorale) incorporates what Nicky describes as the "choir of one", a technique he first fully adopted during the recording of Watermark that finds Enya performing multi-layered vocals to create a mellifluous sea of harmonies. "It is re-released every year in America and it was so nice to go back and do something different with it." "It was exciting to re-live Silent Night because I sung that twenty years ago," enthuses Enya. Says Nicky "We started out writing for a Christmas album, but it has evolved into more an Enya album based in a winter landscape where Christmas arrives here and there, but it would be wrong to call it an Enya Christmas album." And Winter Came is nonetheless rich in delightful festive moments, not least the track White in is the Winter Night which Nicky describes as being "the kind of song you could hear at the Proms with everyone joining in, its has that kind of Christmassy vibe."Įnya's seventh studio album also contains two traditional Christmas songs, a soaring rendition of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and a new version of Silent Night (Oíche Chiuín), a song Enya sings in Gaeilge that has proved hugely popular over the years. "I always wanted to do a Christmas album, but as we began recording I didn't feel it was right to impose a Christmas theme on certain songs," explains Enya. Once again the album was recorded in their own studio and is the result of the longstanding creative triumvirate that was formed back in 1982 with producer/arranger Nicky Ryan and lyricist Roma Ryan.Īt the outset And Winter Came was planned as a Christmas project but as the album began to take shape a broader seasonal theme soon became apparent. The album's twelve songs are an atmospheric and enchanting evocation of the changing landscape of winter and the cheer that Christmas brings.
Two years in the making, expectations are understandably high for Enya's forthcoming album And Winter Came. "In October 2008 it will be twenty years since Enya released her beguiling Warner debut album Watermark, during the two decades since she has sold a remarkable 70 million albums around the world, won numerous awards and become Ireland's biggest selling solo artist.
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