Secret Garden

I got to know this group by chance. I was looking for The secret garden's soundtrack and I watched on youtube the video "Nocturne" and I fell in love with that song. Then I found out that they were winners inn the Eurovision song contest in 1995 with that song.

If you haven't heard about them it would be nice to take a glimpse at

their work!

Secret Garden is an award winning Irish-Norwegian duo playing New Instrumental Music, also understood by some as Neo-classical music.

Secret Garden features the Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry and the Norwegian composer/pianist Rolf Løvland. The duo has sold over 3 million albums and won the Eurovision Song Contest for Norway's second time in 1995 with the composition "Nocturne". It was the first and only time to date that a predominantly instrumental piece has won the Eurovision Song Contest, although a few Norwegian lyrics, written by screenwriter Petter Skavlan, were included to ensure that the entry adhered to the contest's rules. Norwegian singer Gunnhild Tvinnereim sang the song in the Eurovision Song Contest and Swedish nyckelharpist Åsa Jinder also guested on the occasion, although neither are regular members of the group. Ten years earlier Rolf Løvland also co-wrote the song "La det swinge" (Let it swing) that secured Norway its first Eurovision Song Contest victory in 1985.
Their success at Eurovision spearheaded the success of their first album Songs from a Secret Garden. It sold a million copies around the world going platinum in Norway and Korea, gold in Ireland, Hong Kong and New Zealand and spending two years in the Billboard New Age charts in 1996 and 1997. Barbra Streisand adapted "Heartstrings" from this album as the song "I've Dreamed of You" on her A Love Like Ours album. She also used "Heartstrings" in her wedding to James Brolin. The album White Stones followed in 1997 also making the top ten on Billboard New Age charts. Dawn of a New Century, again with lyrics by Petter Skavlan, in 1999, Dreamcatcher in 2001 and Once in a Red Moon also enjoyed success around the world including reaching top ten on the Billboard.Their most famous song "You Raise Me Up", performed by Brian Kennedy, has been recorded by more than a hundred other artists including Josh Groban, Russell Watson, Westlife, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Becky Taylor, Celtic Woman, Lena Park, Robert Tremlett and Il Divo.
Secret Garden has released a Dreamcatcher: Best Of album for its tour through Australia and New Zealand in 2004. It reached the top of the Australian New Age charts and the ARIA top 50 album charts.

About "Nocturne"

"Nocturne" was not released as a single in Norway itself. The first release of the song as a single would come in a comedic cover version by country-inspired novelty band Døsty Cåwshit, reaching #16 on the Norwegian singles chart in 1996. The song was however released as a single by Secret Garden in the rest of Europe and Scandinavia, then in its English language version, and reached #26 in Sweden, #6 in Belgium (Flanders), #24 in Belgium (Wallonia) and #20 in the Netherlands.
"Nocturne" is included in Secret Garden's first album, Songs from a Secret Garden.
The song is noted for its relative absence of lyrics - with only 24 words being sung in the original Norwegian version and much of the rest of the song being given over to a violin intermezzo performed by guest Irish musician Fionnuala Sherry.

Video

Video "Prayer"

Video "Sleepsong"

James Horner

He is a very very well known composer. I think he most well known for the movie soundtrack of "Titanic", but in my case the first movie soundtrack I heard from Mr. Horner was from the movie "The land Before time".
There's no need to add that his work is amazing and that is a must to listen to his work!

James Roy Horner (born August 14, 1953) is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements.
Horner's career spans over three decades and he has composed several of Hollywood's most famous film scores. His score to the 1997 film Titanic remains the best selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time.
In addition, Horner has scored over 100 films, frequently collaborating with acclaimed directors such as James Cameron and Ron Howard. Other scores he worked on include those of Braveheart, Apollo 13, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Glory, The Mask of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro, Enemy at the Gates, The Missing, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, A Beautiful Mind, The Perfect Storm, Avatar, and, most recently, The Karate Kid, which was released in June 2010.
His body of work is notable for including the scores to the two highest-grossing films of all time; Titanic and Avatar, both of which were directed by James Cameron.
Horner is a two-time Academy Award-winner, and has received a total of 10 Oscar nominations. He has won numerous other awards, including the Golden Globe Award and the Grammy Award.

Video "Whispering Winds"

From the movie "The Land Before Time"

Video "A kaleidoscope of mathematics"

From the movie "A beautiful mind"

Video "The Ludlows"

From the movie "Legends of the Fall"

Video "The gift of mortality"

From the movie "The Bicentennial Man"

I'll post more of his work. This is just a glimpse at James Horner :)

To find out more wait until another post!

Zbigniew Preisner

When I was 11 years old I watched again, after 6 years, the movie "The secret garden". Of course I loved the movie but I liked much more the soundtrack. It took me a long time to figure out which were the names of the songs and the composer. But finally I got to know this man and his amazing work.

If you don't know him or his work, you should take a glimpse at it! you won't regret it if you want to expand your musical taste and knowledge about movie soundtracks.

Zbigniew Preisner studied history and philosophy in Kraków. Never having received formal music lessons, he taught himself about music by listening and transcribing parts from records. His compositional style represents a distinctively spare form of tonal neo-Romanticism. Paganini and Jean Sibelius are acknowledged influences.
Preisner is best known for the music composed for the films directed by fellow Pole Krzysztof Kieślowski. His Song for the Unification of Europe, based on the Greek text of 1 Corinthians 13, is attributed to a character in Kieślowski's Three Colors: Blue and plays a dominating role in the story. His music for Three Colors: Red includes a setting of Polish and French versions of a poem by Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize-winning poet.
After working with Kieślowski on Three Colors: Blue, Preisner was hired by the producer Francis Ford Coppola to write the score for The Secret Garden, directed by Polish director Agnieszka Holland. Although Preisner is most closely associated with Kieślowski, he has collaborated with several other directors, winning a César in 1996 for his work on Jean Becker's Élisa. He has won a number of other awards, including another César in 1994 for Three Colors: Red, and the Silver Bear from the 1997 Berlin Film Festival 1997 for The Island on Bird Street.
In 1998, Requiem for My Friend, Preisner's first large scale work not written for film, premiered. It was originally intended as a narrative work to be written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and directed by Kieślowski, but it became a memorial to Kieślowski after the director's death. He composed the theme music for the People's Century, a monumental twenty-six part documentary made jointly in 1994 by the BBC television network in United Kingdom and the PBS television network in the United States. He has also worked with director Thomas Vinterberg on the 2003 film It's All About Love and provided orchestration for David Gilmour's 2006 album On An Island. Silence, Night and Dreams is Zbigniew Preisner’s new recording project, a large-scale work for orchestra, choir and soloists, based on texts from the Book of Job. The premier recording, was released in 2007 with the lead singer of Madredeus, Teresa Salgueiro and boy soprano Thomas Cully from Libera.

Video "First time Outside"

From the movie "The Secret Garden"

Video "Lovers"
From the movie "Aberdeen"

Video "Fairytale"
From the movie "Fairytale: A true story"

I'll post more of his work. This is just a glimpse at Zbigniew Preisner :)

To find out more wait until another post or enter his website: http://www.preisner.com/

Enya

This artist entered in my life at a young age, my favourite song of her is "Caribbean Blue",
but when I was little I used to love "Orinoco Flow" the only song which was a 1# hit in UK!
If you are one of the few people who still hasn't listened to her job you should take at least a glimpse at her work!

She's an Irish Singer, instrumentalist and composer born on 17th May 1961.
She began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad, before leaving to perform solo. She gained wider recognition for her music in the 1986 BBC series The Celts.
Shortly afterwards, her 1988 album Watermark propelled her to further international fame and she became known for her unique sound, characterised by voice-layering, folk melodies, synthesised backdrops and ethereal reverberations. She continued to enjoy steady success during the 1990s and 2000s; her 2000 album A Day Without Rain sold 15 million copies and she was named the world's best selling female artist of 2001. She is Ireland's best-selling solo musician and is officially the country's second-largest musical export after the band U2. Her album sales stand at 70 million as of 2009, with over 26 million in album sales in the US.Her work has earned her, among other things, four Grammy awards and an Academy Award nomination. She has performed in 10 languages during her career thus far.

About "Caribbean Blue"

"Caribbean Blue" got to Number 13 in the UK Singles Chart.
The song features a kind of tropical mood with a relaxing vibe, giving the listener the feeling of being on a Caribbean cruise ship. The song mentions the Anemoi (Greek wind gods): Boreas, Afer Ventus (Africus), Eurus, and Zephyrus.

Video

About "Orinoco Flow"

Released as the lead single off her second studio album Watermark in October 1988, the song became Enya's breakthrough hit, becoming a massive success worldwide, peaking at #1 in several countries including the UK, where it stayed at the top of the charts for 3 weeks.

The song is often incorrectly referred to as "Sail Away," a phrase repeated during the chorus. The American version of the single, however, was retitled "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)." It peaked at #24 there in early 1989.

The song was highly popular in the early 1990s and was featured on many pop music compilations.[citation needed] It shares part of its name with Orinoco Studios (now Miloco Studios), where it was recorded. [citation needed]

The division of syllables to follow the pattern of music may trick the listener into thinking that the song is written in Latin (as some Enya tracks are), but the lyrics are in fact English. At the end of the song she pays tribute to Warner Brothers Music UK CEO Rob Dickins and makes a more veiled reference to producer Ross Cullum.

In 1998 a special edition 10th anniversary remix single was released.

Video

I'll post more of her work. This is just a glimpse at Enya :)

To find out more wait until another post or enter her website: http://www.enya.com/