Celtic Woman Returns To PPAC With New Voices

[Don]

Photo By Joan Marcus
The five women of Celtic Woman are Orla Fallon, left, Maev N? Mhaolchatha, Mairead Nesbitt, Chloe Agnew and Alex Sharpe.


The show is Celtic Woman, which returns to the Providence Performing Arts Center tomorrow night.

It started as a one-night stand, a single concert for a few friends and family featuring some female vocalists from Ireland. Four years later it?s a bona fide sensation.

?We were called to do a one-night show, which everyone at the time thought it was going to be,? said Chole Agnew, one of the four lead vocalists for the group. ?We were just going to invite a few friends and family to come along. Little did we know that we would be where we are today.?

Celtic Woman is on its seventh tour of the United States in three years, said Agnew, who was 14 when she took part in that first concert in Dublin. As an indication of just how big the multi-platinum selling group has become, Celtic Woman is returning to PPAC for three nights ? with basically the same show it brought here for one night last year. Selections will be from the group?s most recent album A New Journey.

?There are great audiences there,? Agnew said of Providence. ?They?re wild. We didn?t expect that at all. They were absolutely insane.

?So we?re definitely looking forward to three nights.?

There are some changes in the show, said Agnew, who is now all of 18. A couple of new singers have come on board to replace Lisa Kelly, who has taken time off to have a baby, and New Zealander Hayley Westenra, who left to pursue a solo career.

Alex Sharpe, who has sung a lot of musical theater and appears on the Evita film soundtrack with Madonna, is the newest arrival. Joining her is Lynn Hilary, a trained classical soprano who is the featured soloist on the Riverdance 10th anniversary CD and DVD. This is Hilary?s second tour with the group.

?I think people who saw the show last year will notice quite a difference,? said Agnew. ?Hopefully, people will enjoy it the second time around.?

Besides the lead vocalists, there?s Mairead Nesbitt on fiddle, a six-piece band with pipes and drums, and an eight-member choir.

Agnew, who grew up in a musical family, said she was practically born on stage. She also plays piano, guitar and recorder.

?My father is an oboist and my mother is a singer, actress and comedienne. Music was sort of second nature to me. But neither of them pushed me into anything I didn?t want to do myself. I?ve been allowed to make big decisions on my own, which has given me so much more independence and helped me grow and mature a lot.?

Agnew, who was calling from Memphis, got her basic musical training in a prestigious girls? choir in Dublin when she was 8. Three years later, she and a friend responded to an appeal to children to chip in whatever pocket change they could to aid the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rather than set up a lemonade stand, Agnew called music producer David Downes, a friend of her folks, with the idea of cutting a single.

Downes recorded ?This Holy Christmas Night,? which was released on Celtic Collections. Agnew later sang the holiday song on Ireland?s biggest late-night television talk show and raised 20,000 pounds.

?My parents didn?t know a thing about it,? said Agnew, who made the call to Downes on her own. ?We went completely behind their backs and when the single came out we said, ?Oh by the way, we?re on The Late Late Show on Friday night.? ?

That single led to a solo album at the age of 12. It fared so well, a second album came out two years later, about the time she got the call to appear in that first Celtic Woman concert.

These days the group spends most of its time in the United States, where its popularity stems from its exposure on public television. Celtic Woman?s first PBS special three years ago has aired more than 3,400 times on 316 stations. Celtic Woman has held the number-one spot on the Billboard World Music chart for more than 90 consecutive weeks.


The group also performs a lot in Japan, where it has a big fan base, said Agnew.

?A lot of Japanese music is spiritual,? she said, ?and people tend to say our music is healing. It?s very calming. You can kind of find peace in it.?

Agnew said she believes the secret of Celtic Woman?s success is that the members have been ?true to ourselves?
?From day one, we?ve never tried to be anything but what we are. What we do is true and very honest and from the heart.

?And I think people can feel that in our music. The minute we walk on the stage I think people know that?s the best two hours of our day. Everything just goes out the window and we enjoy ourselves so much.?

Agnew said she thinks fans connect with songs like ?You Raise Me Up,? and ?The Prayer,? one of her solos.

?The best part for us is the meet-and-greet afterwards,? said Agnew, ?when people have said to us that a song has helped them in one way or another. I think a lot of the songs have very personal meanings.?

Tomorrow?s concert will contain a mix of Irish standards, classical favorites and original selections from David Downes, who not only recorded Agnew?s albums but is music director for Celtic Woman.

?It really has been an overnight success,? said Agnew. ?I think all of us today have to pinch ourselves.?


01:00 AM EST on Sunday, March 9, 2008
By Channing Gray
Journal Arts Writer
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