Choose artist...
Home   >   Projects

Projects

Artist: Loreena McKennitt
Projects per page:
Loreena McKennitt:

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

With a recording career spanning more than two decades and over 14 million albums sold worldwide, Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt continues to explore the many aspects of traditional Celtic music with the release of her forthcoming album, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Due November 16 on Verve, the album marks a pointed return to the traditional Irish and Scottish music that began McKennitt's career, revisiting the age-old music of Elemental, her 1985 debut.

"This has been a somewhat spontaneous project," says McKennitt, "and it was one that I wanted to accomplish close to home. I was inpsired and encouraged by many of my friends and fans who asked that I record traditional material once again." She continues, "In another sense, it has been like ‘touching the stone' going back to the roots of my intial infatuation with Celtic music which inspired my musical travel writing of recent years. And I must say it feels wonderful to return to my musical roots."

Mixing familiar classics with lesser-known traditional songs, The Wind That Shakes The Barley includes songs such as as "Down by the Sally Gardens," "The Star of the County Down" and "The Parting Glass," as well as "The Death of Queen Jane" and "As I Roved Out." There are two instrumental tracks, including the McKennitt original "The Emigration Tunes (From Cobh to Gros Ile)," referring to Irish-Canadian history during the famine of the 1840s.

Recorded this past summer at the Temple of the Children of Peace in a handcrafted wooden building north of Toronto, The Wind That Shakes The Barley features some of McKennitt's longtime musical companions, including violinist Hugh Marsh, guitarist Brian Huges, cellist Caroline Lavelle and percussionist/hurdy-gurdy player Ben Grossman. The album was engineered by Jeff Wolpert, with whom McKennitt has worked on numerous other live recording projects, including Live in Paris and Toronto, Nights from the Alhambra and A Mediterranean Odyssey.

Loreena McKennitt:

Nights From The Alhambra

Loreena McKennitt has released her first live concert DVD, Loreena McKennitt: Nights From The Alhambra. The performances were filmed in Granada, Spain at the Palacio de Carlos V in the Alhambra Palace historic monument over three nights in September 2006; McKennitt is one of very few artists to have been granted the opportunity to perform in this breathtaking Unesco World Heritage site. Selections from the concerts originally aired on PBS as a "Great Performances" special. The DVD includes debut performances of material from her first new album in nine years, An Ancient Muse, which the Los Angeles Times has called "a musical fusion that unites entire cultures," as well as newly orchestrated renditions of all of her familiar favorites, including "The Mummers' Dance," "All Souls Night," "The Bonny Swans" and "Cymbeline."

"You're within the compound of this circular environment, and you think, 'Oh, I'm in a small performance space.' Then you look up, and it's open to the sky." McKennitt said of the experience of playing in the breathtaking 16th century building-a masterwork of Spanish Renaissance architecture. In Nights From The Alhambra, McKennitt shares the stage with a diverse lineup of world musicians including all-Britain champion on uilleann pipes Ste?f?n Hannigan, noted composer and jazz violinist Hugh Marsh, Syrian-born oud virtuoso Haig Yazdjian and classically trained lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos. "You really see the interplay with the musicians and how they spark each other," McKennitt says of the recorded performances.

The international roster of musicians on the DVD mirrors the focus of her new album. Produced by McKennitt, An Ancient Muse takes the listener on a journey that sweeps across eras and musical genres, from the British Isles to ancient Greece and Byzantine- and Ottoman-era Turkey. Scripps News calls the album "a literary-flavored, Celtic-oriented travelogue of the Mediterranean region of centuries ago," and McKennitt herself describes the album by saying "I don't know where I'm going to go on this trip. I'm just going to get on board the train and allow each encounter to lead to the next."

In a recording career spanning two decades, McKennitt has won worldwide critical acclaim and gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards in 15 countries across four continents. She has won numerous awards including the Billboard International Achievement Award and two Juno Awards.

Nights from the Alhambra is offered as a three-disc set comprising one DVD (with a running time of nearly 140 minutes) and two audio CDs. The package is available in both a DVD-format digipak and a CD-format digipak.