As Loreena McKennitt returns to the concert stages of North America with a series of 26 dates in April and May, Quinlan Road Community members will have the opportunity to buy tickets online before anyone else. Hard on the heels of 21 European dates, the North American leg of the tour begins with two nights at Toronto’s Massey Hall (April 15 and 16) and ends with two consecutive dates at Victoria’s Royal Theatre (May 18 and 19). Along the way, Loreena and her nine-piece band will visit three provinces, twelve states and the District of Columbia, bringing both selections from her latest release and much-loved favourites from previous recordings to tens of thousands of concertgoers. In conjunction with local promoters and ticket agents, Quinlan Road is pleased to offer the Quinlan Road Community the chance to purchase tickets during an exclusive pre-sale period. In most cases, this presale period begins today, February 12, and runs until tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday February 15. See table below for full details including relevant website addresses and the passwords you will need to access pre-sale ticketing. PBS viewers should note that, with the exception of the Toronto, Reading and Scottsdale concerts, a limited number of tickets will also be on offer via local PBS stations as pledge premiums. Loreena and Quinlan Road are happy to offer this opportunity to assist in supporting public broadcasting.
Listen to the single from 'An Ancient Muse': Caravanserai A wonderful song and one of Loreena's best songs, EVER Caravanserai Live at Alhambra (video) 5,5 minutes Penelope's Song Live at Alhambra (video) 4,5 minutes
Nights from the Alhambra An Ancient Muse Discography Concerts The Book Of Secrets The Mask And Mirror About the first four albums Links e-mail: I Can Fly
Nights from the Alhambra
August 21st, 2006 In the lead-up to the release of her new studio recording An Ancient Muse, Loreena McKennitt and a stellar band of musical colleagues are to perform three outdoor concerts at the fabled Alhambra monument in Granada, Spain. On September 13 and 14, Loreena will take the stage in the courtyard of the Palacio de Carlos V at the Alhambra monument. These two intimate, 400-seat performances will be filmed for a PBS Great Performances television special, directed by Jim Kellahin and scheduled to air in early 2007. On September 15, Loreena will perform at the Teatro del Generalife, a 2000-capacity outdoor venue in the Alhambra grounds, as part of Granada’s “Noches de las Mil y Una Músicas” series. Each of the three evenings will see Loreena perform a 90-minute set covering highlights from a catalogue which has sold over 13 million records worldwide, along with choice selections from her new recording An Ancient Muse, due for worldwide release in November of 2006. Loreena will be accompanied by musicians Brian Hughes, Hugh Marsh, Donald Quan, Nigel Eaton, Rick Lazar, Caroline Lavelle, Steáfán Hannigan, Tal Bergman, Tim Landers, Haig Yazdjian, Sokratis Sinopoulos and Panos Dimitrakopoulos. Read about the Concerts in Spain (and others) Caravanserai Live at Alhambra (video) 5,5 minutes Penelope's Song Live at Alhambra (video) 4,5 minutes
TELL ME, O MUSE, OF THOSE WHO TRAVELLED FAR AND WIDE... Listen to soundclips from 'An Ancient Muse' August 8, 2006 This autumn will see the release of Loreena McKennitt’s 7th full-length studio album, An Ancient Muse, worldwide. As with her earlier albums, McKennitt takes her inspiration from the Celtic peoples, fusing the melodic sensibility of Scottish and Irish balladry with musical traditions from Greece, Turkey, Spain and even Scandinavia. The recording is her first new studio album since 1997’s The Book of Secrets, a multi-platinum success worldwide. The album, which was recorded at Real World Studios in England and features a host of internationally acclaimed musical guests and exotic instrumentation, takes the listener on a journey from the Scottish borders to the caravanserais of the Silk Road and the wine-dark seas of Homer’s Odyssey. An Ancient Muse will be released on Quinlan Road/Verve in the United States, via Universal Music in Canada and a number of other territories, and in collaboration with a further range of labels in selected countries. Visit the Quinlan Road/Loreena McKennitt official website in the coming weeks for further details on our release partners for An Ancient Muse. Press-release August 14, 2006 This Autumn, Quinlan Road/Universal Music Canada will release Loreena McKennitt's label debut, An Ancient Muse. As with her earlier albums, McKennitt takes her inspiration from the Celtic peoples, fusing the melodic sensibility of Scottish and Irish balladry with musical traditions from Greece, Turkey, Spain, and even Scandinavia. The recording is McKennitt's first new studio album since 1997's multi-platinum The Book of Secrets. Produced by Loreena McKennitt, An Ancient Muse continues McKennitt's exploration of Celtic themes on a journey that sweeps across eras and musical genres, from the British Isles to ancient Greece and Byzantine- and Ottoman-era Turkey. As McKennitt herself describes it, "This record is a little like equipping yourself with a Eurail card and saying, I don't know where I'm going to on this trip. I'm just going to get on board the train, and allow each encounter to lead to the next." The nine tracks on An Ancient Muse take the listener on a timeless journey: a return home in "The Gates of Istanbul", the wonder of nomadic wandering in "Caravanserai", star-crossed love and the Crusades in "The English Ladye and the Knight", based on a poem by Sir Walter Scott, and loss and longing in "Penelope's Song", which takes as its subject Odysseus' wife, waiting and worrying while he was off having the adventures immortalized in Homer's The Odyssey. Despite the wide array of instrumentation (including oud, lyra, Swedish keyed fiddle and viola da gamba), all the performances derive from similar inspiration: the sense of landscape McKennitt brings to all her work - a visual set of images, organically connecting the piece to musician and instrument. February 12, 2007 An Ancient Muse Tour comes to North America
Loreena will perform highlights from her new recording An Ancient Muse, as well as much-loved favourites from earlier recordings. She will be accompanied by a nine-piece band: Tal Bergman, Ben Grossman, Brian Hughes, Tim Landers, Caroline Lavelle, Rick Lazar, Hugh Marsh, Donald Quan and Sokratis Sinopoulos. The North American dates follow a 21-date, nine-country European tour in March and April. McKennitt will undertake another tour, this time to include more Canadian concerts, in the autumn. The current emphasis on US concerts is intended to meet additional demand from the airing of her first major American TV special, Loreena McKennitt: Nights From the Alhambra, to be seen on the PBS network in March. European Tour 2007 Mar 11 Stuttgart Germany Beethovensaal Sold out Mar 12 Frankfurt Germany Jahrhunderthalle Mar 14 Amsterdam Netherlands Heineken Music Hall Sold out Mar 15 Paris France Grand Rex Sold out Mar 17 Murcia Spain Auditorio de Murcia Mar 18 Barcelona Spain BTM Mar 20 Rome Italy Auditorium Conciliazione Mar 21 Bologna Italy Teatro delle Celebrazioni Mar 22 Milan Italy Teatro degli Arcimboldi Mar 23 Florence Italy Teatro Verdi Mar 25 Zurich Switzerland Kongresshaus Sold out Mar 26 Munich Germany Philharmonie im Gasteig Mar 27 Dusseldorf Germany Philipshalle Mar 28 Berlin Germany Tempodrom Sold out Mar 30 Amsterdam Netherlands Heineken Music Hall Mar 31 Hamburg Germany CCH1 Apr 1 Copenhagen Denmark Falkoner Theatre Apr 3 London United Kingdom The Barbican Apr 4 Brussels Belgium Cirque Royal Sold out Apr 5 Roubaix France Colisée de Roubaix Apr 6 Antwerp Belgium Queen Elisabeth Hall US / Canada Tour 2007 Apr 15 Toronto, Canada Massey Hall Apr 16 Toronto, Canada Massey Hall Apr 17 Montreal, Canada Place des Arts Apr 19 Philadelphia, PA Academy of Music Apr 20 New York, NY Radio City Music Hall Apr 21 Boston, MA Wang Centre Apr 23 Reading, PA Sovereign Performing Art Center Apr 24 Washington, DC DAR Constitution Hall Apr 26 Asheville, NC Thomas Wolfe Auditorium Apr 27 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium Apr 29 Ann Arbor, MI Michigan Theater Apr 30 Kalamazoo, MI State Theatre May 1 Chicago, IL Civic Opera House May 2 Madison, WI Overture Hall May 3 Minneapolis, MN State Theatre May 5 Boulder, CO Macky Auditorium & Concert Hall May 7 Salt Lake City, UT Kingsbury Hall May 9 Scottsdale, AZ Symphony Hall May 10 Los Angeles, CA Greek Theatre May 11 San Diego, CA Humphrey's May 12 Oakland, CA Paramount May 13 San Rafael, CA Marin Civic May 15 Seattle, WA Paramount May 16 Bellingham, WA Mt. Baker Theater May 18 Victoria, BC Royal Theatre May 19 Victoria, BC Royal Theatre
A GOOD TRAVELLER HAS NO FIXED PLANS AND IS NOT INTENT ON ARRIVING Lao Tzu (570-490 BC)
Early in the summer, Loreena completed recording and mixing her sixth full-length album,
Recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, it was researched and written all over the world. Produced, once again, by Loreena McKennitt herself.
PROLOGUE The songs on this recording have been assembled like a mosaic, with disparate pieces collected from many places and fitted together one by one. I was inspired, in creating this prologue, by both my own travels to Greece and Turkey, and the resonances of the journeys of others encountered in my research. One such exploration was that of the 6th century monk John Moschos, whose travels from Mount Athos in Greece to Byzantium were the subject of his book "The Spiritual Meadow." I found another in William Dalrymple’s "From The Holy Mountain", in which the author retraces Moschos’ footsteps in the 1990s. THE MUMMERS’ DANCE A musical painting of the traditional folk custom of mumming, which has its roots in the tree-worshipping of the peoples who inhabited great regions of a forested Europe now long gone. Mummers, dressed in masks and costumes bedecked with ribbons and rags, are performers who parade through village streets to neighbouring houses, singing songs and carrying branches of greenery. Though such celebrations appear to be related to our Hallowe’en, they usually occur at different times of the year, particularly the New Year and close to May Day. The chorus and last verse of this song are taken from an original mummers’ song traditionally sung in Abingdon in Oxfordshire. SKELLIG The lyrics to this song tell the story of an elderly Irish monk in the 7th century. Having spent most of his life in the isolated religious community of Skellig Michael on the west coast of Ireland, he then travels with his fellow monks to Europe, perhaps to Italy. On his deathbed, he passes on to a fellow brother the responsibility of continuing his work: the copying, and thus the preservation, of ancient texts. Those illuminated works, it has been argued, were of crucial importance in reintroducing classical literature to the European continent after the decline of the Roman Empire. Despite their weighty content, the manuscripts handed down to us also display the lively personalities of their long-ago scribes. Many are embellished in the margins with irreverent asides, comments to the lonely monks’ far-off loved ones, and charming drawings of birds, mice and other small creatures. MARCO POLO This piece was conceived with the exotic voyages of Marco Polo in mind. A thirteenth-century Venetian merchant, Polo’s quest may have been for the rich rewards of silks and spices, but he brought back more than merchandise: his tales of the East fired the imaginations of his fellow Europeans for centuries to come. What wonders did he encounter on his journey? What new sights and sounds? Thinking of his travels, I have incorporated an authentic Sufi melody into the body of my own melody. THE HIGHWAYMAN This is my musical setting of the famed narrative poem by Staffordshire-born poet Alfred Noyes. His early works at the dawn of the twentieth century were remarkable for their popularity, not only with literary society and fellow poets such as Swinburne, but also with readers from all social classes. Recording at Real World Studios, I learn that this very area of Wiltshire had its own highwaymen two centuries ago, and the lush, dramatic beauty of the countryside seems to fit Noyes’ lyrics perfectly. LA SERENISSIMA Perhaps this music will conjure up echoes of Venice’s rich, and at times fantastically opulent, past. One such moment was surely the occasion of the young Henry III of France’s visit to "the most serene" city in 1574. Upon his arrival, he was dazzled by an extraordinary pageant arranged in his honour: floating arches, rafts of glass-blowers creating figurines as they floated past, commissioned paintings by masters of the era. Jan Morris describes that scene, in delicious detail, in her book "Venice." NIGHT RIDE ACROSS THE CAUCASUS I was fascinated by Murat Yagan’s autobiography, "I Come From Behind Kaf Mountain." It relates his initiation into the world of Sufism through equestrian training in a remote and mountainous part of the Caucasus. This led me on to the further exploration of certain Sufic sentiments: "Music and singing do not produce in the heart that which is not in it." DANTE’S PRAYER I travelled by train across Siberia in December of 1995. Although my initial intention was to find a solitude which would allow me to work on the themes and ideas for this recording, I was drawn in and distracted by the moving tableau of humanity which passed by my window. At the same time, I had begun to make my way through Dante’s "The Divine Comedy." When I returned to it, something about all those souls I had met and seen seemed to haunt me; seemed connected, somehow, to Dante’s words. Tour-dates
Update: March 4, 1998 Italy: March 19 - 27, 1998 Ticket/concert information for all Italian dates: +39 2 760 09400. 19 March 1998 Roma Teatro Brancaccio 06-487 45 63 20 March 1998 Firenze Teatro Verdi 055-21 23 20 22 March 1998 Torino Teatro Colosseo 011-650 51 95 23 March 1998 Genova Teatro Politeama Genovese 010-839 35 89 24 March 1998 Bologna Teatro Medica 051-23 29 01 25 March 1998 Milano Teatro Lirico 02-80 96 65 26 March 1998 Mestre (Venezia) Teatro Toniolo 27 March 1998 Trieste Salle Tripcovich Germany: March 29 - April 8, 1998 The Frankfurt number is also the number of the ticket hotline for all German dates 29 March 1998 Frankfurt Alte Oper Info: +49 (0)69 944 3660* 30 March 1998 Berlin Friedrichstadtpalast Info: +49 (0)30 810 750 1 April 1998 Dresden Kulturpalast Info: +49 (0)931 23021 2 April 1998 Stuttgart Liederhalle Hegelsaal Info: +49 (0)711 16353 21 4 April 1998 Muenster Halle Muensterland Info: +49 (0)251 201320 5 April 1998 Duesseldorf Philipshalle Info: +49 (0)241 532044 6 April 1998 Hamburg CCH 1 Info: +49 (0)40 41 47 880 7 April 1998 Nuernberg Meistersingerhalle Info: +49 (0)931 23021 8 April 1998 Muenchen Philharmonie Info: +49 (0)89 611 6061 Benelux: April 10 - 12, 1998 10 April 1998 Amsterdam Carre Theatre (SOLD OUT)* 11 April 1998 Utrecht Muziekcentrum Vredenburg* 12 April 1998 Brussels Palais Des Beaux Arts Info +32 (0)70 345 678 *For information on the two dates in The Netherlands listed above, please ring 0900 300 1250 (if you are calling from The Netherlands only). Callers from within The Netherlands OR from other countries may call +31 (0)15 24 27 125 or +31 (0) 15 212 1980. The Mask And Mirror 
Honoured with a 1995 Juno for Best Roots/Traditional album, Loreena McKennitt's most recent full-length recording incorporates Spanish, Celtic and Moroccan influences. The album highlights her musical settings of poems by St. John of the Cross, W.B. Yeats and Shakespeare, as well as an interpretation of traditional folk song The Bonny Swans and eclectic, richly textured originals including The Mystic's Dream (as featured in the Paramount Pictures film "Jade") and Marrakesh Night Market. About the first four albums
Elemental (1985) Loreena's first album is a collection of original arrangements of traditional celtic pieces, including She Moved Through The Fair, Carrickfergus and The Blacksmith. The album also contains her moving setting of the Yeats poem The Stolen Child. To Drive The Cold Winter Away (1987) A collection of winter and Christmas carols. The album was recorded in a variety of locations including a monastery near Limerick, Annaghmakerrig, an artists retreat in Ireland and the Church of our Lady in Guelph, Ontario. Parallel Dreams (1989) Has been one of the most successful independantly-produced albums ever released in Canada. Unlike the previous albums, this album contains original songs written by Loreena, deeply influenced by celtic traditions. The titles include Dickens' Dublin, Ancient Pines (from the NFB film The Goddess Remembered) and Huron Beltane Fire Dance. The Visit (1991) Recorded in the late summer of 1991, The Visit expands on earlier celtic musical and cultural influences in a fresh and contemparary way. The album includes an unusual version of Greensleeves, a setting of Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott, and a number or original pieces including All Souls Night and Tango To Evora (from the NFB film The Burning Times). Links Quinlan Road Ltd
Heaven On Earth (two video clips) 2 + 1 minutes
Marrakesh Night Market, Greek TV 1998 (video) 5 minutes
Stolen Child Live in Winnipeg 8/10/02 (on piano, not harp) (video) 5 minutes
The Lady of Shalott Live in Winnipeg 8/10/02 (video) 4,5 minutes
The Bonny Swans (video clip) 1,5 minutes
The Mummer's Dance (video clip) 1,5 minutes
The Mummer's Dance Live at Letterman Show (video) 3,5 minutes
No Journey's End (video clip) 1 minute
Loreena travels to Mongolia (video) 3,5 minutes
Folk Alley Interview (audio) 23 minutes
Iceberg Radio Interview (audio) 25 minutes
Penelope's Song Live on Radio Canada + Interview (audio) 9 minutes
4 songs on World Cafe + Interview (audio) 27 minutes (special mix of Caravanserai)
Interview RAC1 Barcelona March 18 (audio) 25 minutes (Click on Mar 18, 12h) Starts at 22,40 min
Live at Alhambra videos: The Mystic's Dream, The Lady Of Shalott, The Mummer's Dance (video clip) 5,5 minutes
Penelope's Song Live at Alhambra (video) 4,5 minutes
Caravanserai Live at Alhambra (video) 5,5 minutes
Live at Barnes & Noble videos: Penelope's Song, Live at Barnes & Noble (video) 4,5 minutes Stolen Child, (on piano) w/ Brian Hughes (video) 5 minutes Raglan Road, Live at Barnes & Noble (video) 6,5 minutes
Live 2007 videos: Penelope's Song, Live in France, Feb 9 (video) 3 minutes
Band Members: BRIAN HUGHES
Steafan Hannigan's Myspace page
Fan Pages: Discussion list old-ways maintained by Christian Walter
The Loreena McKennitt Journey by Tracie Pascoe
Fabrizio Fiorucci's Loreena Page (beware of MIDI-files !!)
A Tribute to Loreena McKennitt by Joseph Lee
Lucien A. Stam's Loreena McKennitt Page
Colin Glassey's Music of Loreena McKennitt
The Winter Garden by Julia E. Linthicum
Jos van Geffen's Loreena McKennitt page
The Goddess Remembered by Amanda Kummel
Aaron McMahon web page, now maintained by Michelle Bowers (not updated)
The Mystic's Zine by Richard Lester
FolkLib Index for Loreena McKennitt
Former Loreena connected link that no longer works
Taliesin's Loreena McKennitt Page