Secret Garden 'Earthsongs' album

Secret Garden’s 5th studio album has recently just been released in Norway. The CD is titled “Earthsongs” and contains 15 new Rolf Lovland songs.

With 3.5 million CD’s sold worldwide, this time around they’ve teamed up with guest artists Brian Kennedy, Ole Edvard Antonsen and Jan Werner Danielsen.

YOU RAISE ME UP
It’s been two years since the last CD, “Once in a Red Moon” was released. The album contained the Rolf Lovland’s song “You Raise Me Up”. The song has since been covered by nearly 40 artists, most notably being Josh Groban’s version that topped the Billboard list in the US and sold more than 6 million CD’s around the world. “You Raise Me Up” has also been used in connection with a large number of important and highly profiled television broadcasts and events in America, including NBC’s broadcast of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, the 2004 Super Bowl in honor of the Columbia crew that so tragically perished in 2003, and even more poignantly, at the 9/11 day of remembrance recently at Ground Zero in New York City. RTE (Irish Public Service Television) is now producing a documentary program dedicated in full about “You Raise Me Up” to be aired during Christmas. The program includes interviews with, among others; Secret Garden, Josh Groban and his producer David Foster.

With “Once in a Red Moon”, Secret Garden topped the Classical lists both in Australia and Ireland and in the US, the album remained several weeks top 10 on Billboard’s New Age list for several months and went Gold in Ireland, Korea and Australia, making “Once in a Red Moon” and international success. The CD sold 60,000 units in Norway, making it one of the best selling albums of 2002. “You Raise Me Up” is currently the most sold sheet music in America.

GUEST ARTISTS
Aside from their success with songs – it is really Instrumental music that is the”core” of Secret Garden. On “Earthsongs”, fully eleven of the fifteen cuts are instrumentals. With guest artists such as Ole Edvard Antonsen, Hans Fredrik Jacobsen, Åsa Jinder (Norway) and Mairtín O´Connor and Mairéad Nesbitt (Ireland) – it is the Norwegian and Irish influence that characterizes the album. Brian Kennedy, the voice of the original recording of “You Raise Me Up”, performs again, this time on the song “Always There” – and Irish inspired ballad with lyrics penned by Brendan Graham. Jan Werner Danielsen interprets “Half a World Away”, a song which is also represented as an instrumental on the CD titled “Sometimes When it Rains”. The Irish singer, Saoirse, who has lately been touring with Secret Garden, performs “Sleepsong”. The closing track of the CD, “Raise Your Voices”, is a chorale for choir and orchestra.

THE RECORDING
The recording of “Earthsongs” began in Ireland in June of 2004. The remote yet hyper modern studio, Grouse Lodge, was chosen as the location for the first weeks of the recording with the participation of the Irish musicians. The Symphony orchestra, Choir and vocals were recorded at RTE’s main studio in Dublin. After the summer, Secret Garden chose to return to rural setting of PUK Studios in Jutland, Denmark where they had previously recorded parts of their first CD. There they recorded both the Norwegian musicians and Fionnuala Sherry’s violin solos. During their Fall tour of China, Secret Garden found time to record with the renowned Chinese “erhu” (Chinese 2-string violin) player. This performance can be heard on the track titled “Lotus”. Excerpts of this collaboration called “Gjennom muren” (”Through the Wall”) will be shown on NRK (the Norwegian State Broadcasting Corp.) during Christmas . The final mix of the CD was done in Los Angeles together with Alan Mayerson – the well-known film music composer, Hans Zimmer’s steady sound recording technician on films such as “The Gladiator”, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Last Samurai”.

CONCERTS
Secret Garden has toured extensively large regions of the World this last year. During the spring the band did concerts in Singapore, Korea and Australia. A sold out performance the Sydney Opera House was testimony to the band’s popularity. In Korea, Secret Garden performed with the world renowned opera singer Young Ok Shin of the The Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She has subsequently recorded several of the Secret Garden’s songs. This Autumn Secret Garden completed a five-week tour of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong – resulting in 18 sold out concert hall concerts. At the same time, A “best of” Secret Garden double CD, called “The Ultimate Secret Garden Collection” was specially released in Korea to and sold Platinum in record time. Recently, another Secret Garden composition, “Adagio”, was presented as film music in the highly profiled Chinese film “2046” directed by the prestigious director Wong Kar Wai.

In connection with the Norwegian release of “Earthsongs”, Secret Garden recently performed to a sell out audience at the Oslo Concert Hall on December 4th.. The concert featured guest performances by among others, Brian Kennedy, Ole Edvard Antonsen and Saoirse.

Ralf Lovland
Rolf was born in Kristiansand, in southern Norway. His first brush with composing came at the early age of nine, when he formed his first band. From then on, and throughout his youth, music came to be his constant companion and focus in life. He later studied music at the Music Conservatory in Kristiansand - and received his Masters degree in music at the Norwegian Institute of Music in Oslo.

By the time he’d unveiled his "Secret Garden" to the world, Rolf had already earned himself a Norwegian Grammy Award and the reputation as Norway’s most successful popular songwriter, with over 60 national chart hits. For two consecutive years his songs had won the National radio chart "Song of the year-award".

Rolf was also a two-time winner of the international Eurovision Song Contest final - in 1985 with "La det swinge", and in 1995 with "Nocturne". He is also a four-time winner of Norway’s national Eurovision Song Contest finals.

The founding of Secret Garden has given Rolf the freedom to explore (and for us to experience) deeper emotional dimension and wider musical landscape than the earlier phase of his career had allowed. It has also proven the composer, Rolf Lovland, to be a musical force of considerable stature.

Stage Instruments: Acoustic Grand Piano, Yamaha PF-200 digital piano and Roland JV-2080 / XV 5080 module.

Fionnuala Sherry
Fionnuala grew up and went to school in Naas in County Kildare - surrounded by a musical family that ignited her passion for music at an early age. She started to play the violin at the age of eight, and at fifteen she moved to Dublin to study music. She graduated with honours from Trinity College in Dublin, and the College of Music, and was later employed by the RTE Concert Orchestra, where she was a member for ten years.

In addition to the classical symphonic and operatic repertoire, Fionnuala possessed a much wider musical interest. This is evident in the eclectic body of artists and projects she has been involved with, including The Chieftains, Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison, Chris de Burgh, Bono and Wet Wet Wet. With the Irish Film Orchestra she's also recorded several Hollywood film scores, such as "The River Runs Wild", "A room with a view" and "The Mask".

That same wide interest in music led her to conceive, write and present her own music series for children on Irish national TV - all this leading up to her fated meeting with Rolf Lovland and the founding of Secret Garden in 1994.

Onstage, she enchants audiences throughout the world, through her musical intensity and soulful performances. In Secret Garden's music, her unique violin virtuosity provides the heartstrings, voice and wings for Lovland’s compositions.

She performs on an English John Edward Betts violin from 1790, with a Hill bow, both on stage and in the studio.

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Secret Garden - Earthsongs