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Loreena McKennitt releases her first live concert DVD, 'Nights From The Alhambra'

This fall Loreena McKennitt will release 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.