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Celtic Woman - Still Going Strong

 
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:02 pm    Post subject: Celtic Woman - Still Going Strong Reply with quote


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The international Irish music sensation, Celtic Woman, played in Manchester on March 21 at Verizon Wireless at 7:30 p.m. Tickets were $36.50-$54 and were available at select Ticketmaster outlets and online at Ticketmaster.com


On paper, the way Celtic Woman came together did not look like a recipe longevity for the Irish-rooted vocal group.

The four featured vocalists, along with fiddle player Mairead Nesbitt, all came to the group as established solo artists with notable success and viable careers. They also didn't know each other beforehand.

In many cases, that would mean five solo artists with five career agendas and quite possibly the egos to go with it. Plus, there was no guarantee that their personalities would mesh.

Yet four years after the group's first performance, Celtic Woman is still going strong and as popular as ever.

So why did Celtic Woman work

"It is the absolute number one question asked all the time, do you really get along?'" singer Chloë Agnew observed in an early February phone interview. "I think people are always looking for a 'Desperate Housewives' story, that they all hate each other and nobody actually gets along. It's all for show. And the truth of the matter is, it's not. The reality is we do all get along. The five of us are like sisters, best friends."

To singer Orla Fallon, one of the secrets might be that there was no advance plan for Celtic Woman to be an ongoing entity. Originally, Celtic Woman was created for a one-off television special filmed in Ireland, and musical director David Downes and producer Sharon Bowne essentially recruited the four singers "Órla Fallon, Chloë Agnew, Lisa Kelly and Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, along with Máiréad Nesbitt " to perform that single concert.

The women didn't go through a rigid audition process and weren't tied down to specific vocal roles in a group. So essentially Celtic Woman had to invent itself once opportunities for recording and touring presented themselves.

"I think part of the charm is we were thrown in the deep end and we had to get to know each other," Fallon said in a phone interview with this writer in February 2007. "And we did jell. I remember when this started, my husband said oh my God, I feel sorry for the management. How are they going to handle five women, five soloists? It's hard enough to handle one."

Both Agnew and Fallon also said the dedication and professionalism the women brought into the group and have maintained ever since also has helped to foster a bond within the group.

"All of us have put our hearts and souls into it the last three or four years," Agnew said. "We've grown not only just with the show, but with one another as well?And because we're so close, because we're like family at this stage, we all love each other madly."

Plenty of fans obviously love Celtic Woman as well, as the group has enjoyed one hit project after another.

The original Celtic Woman show recorded in Dublin went on to become a popular fund-raising program for PBS in spring and summer 2005 and helped paved the way for the concert DVD that has sold more than a million copies. Meanwhile the group's 2005 self-titled first studio album became entrenched at number one on "Billboard" magazine's world music chart for a record-setting 68 consecutive weeks.

Solo albums by the each of the Celtic women arrived in January 2006, with a CD, "A Christmas Celebration," following that fall before 2007 brought another flurry of new releases. First came a second studio CD, "A New Journey," which like the first CD, mixed traditional Irish songs and more contemporary fare (including covers of "Over The Rainbow" and "Beyond The Sea"). That CD was coupled with the release of a concert DVD, "A New Journey, Live at Slane Castle, Ireland." Then last October, the group released a holiday DVD, "A Christmas Celebration: Live In Dublin." Each of the releases topped "Billboard's" world music chart.

As time has gone on, though, changes have come to the Celtic Woman lineup. Last year, the popular New Zealand singer, Haley Westenra, joined the group for many shows, but has since returned to her solo career. By last fall, both Ní Mhaolchatha had stepped aside to pursue her solo career. Lynn Hilary, a featured singer in "Riverdance," joined as a new vocalist last fall. Now Kelly has gone on maternity leave, and has been replaced by Alex Sharpe, whose theater and movie credits include "The Wizard Of Oz," "Les Miserables" and "Evita."

With Hilary and Sharpe in the lineup, Celtic Woman is a considerably different entity from the one that toured the states just a year ago. Agnew, though, feels the new lineup will be refreshing, and the show itself will be as good as always.

"It completely changes the whole sound and the blend of things," Agnew said of the lineup changes. "But it's always great for performers to keep experimenting and to keep trying out new things. To bring two new voices into the group is brilliant, because it gives a challenge to the rest of us and it's fantastic to freshen things up a little bit. So yeah, it's been great to try out new things. It's been working so far."

By Alan Sculley
Contributing Writer
Article Date: Thursday, March 13, 2008
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