Enya

At 62 years old, Enya has this physical status:

Eithne Pádraign N Bhraonáin (anglicized as Enya Patricia Brennan, born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter, album producer, and singer.

Enya's musical family and raised in Gweedore, Ireland, began her singing career when she joined her family's Celtic band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals.

She and her manager and producer Nicky Ryan left in 1982 to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist.

Enya's sound developed over the course of four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards containing elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, and folk music.

She has sung in ten languages. Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtracks for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary film The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987).

She joined Warner Music United, which gave her creative rights and minimal interference from the label.

Watermark (1988)'s commercial and critical success brought her international recognition, aided by the international top-ten hit single "Orinoco Flow."

Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (1999) were two of the first three bestseller albums.

Following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks, sales of the former and its lead single, "Only Time," increased in the United States.

Enya took a long break from music after Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came (2008); she resurfaced in 2012 and launched Dark Sky Island (2015). Enya is well-known for her secrecy.

With a catalog that has sold 26.5 million registered albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, she is Ireland's top-selling music artist and second-bestselling artist behind U2, making her one of the world's best-selling musicians of all time.

A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age product, with 16 million copies sold worldwide.

Enya has received seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award.

"May It Be" was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

Early life

Eithne Pádraign N Bhraonáin was born in Dore on May 17th, 1961, during a peace in the parish of Gweedore in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region, where the primary language is Irish. Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish, is anglicized. "N" Bhraon" refers to "the dauber of Brennan."

Enya was the sixth of nine children born in a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Leo Brennan, her father, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and Leo Brennan owned Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Máire Brennan (née Duggan), a distant Spanish immigrant whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who performed in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School.

Aodh, Enya's maternal grandfather, and her grandmother was a tutor. Aodh was also the creator of the Gweedore Theatre company.

Enya referred to her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." She appeared in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival at age three. She appeared in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and performed with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg.

At primary school, she learned English and started piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then moved to a neighboring town for piano lessons and then more school work." [...] I remember my brothers and sisters playing outside [...] and I'm sure I'd be inside playing the piano. This is one of the many books on scales, and people are reciting them over and over." When Enya was eleven years old, her grandfather paid for her education at a Catholic boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she acquired a fascination with classical music, art, Latin, and watercolor painting. "It was sad to be ripped away from such a large family, but it was also good for my music," she said. Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for a year before deciding to be "a piano teacher." I never imagined myself writing or being on stage."

Personal life

Enya is known for her private life, saying, "The music is what sells." Not me or what I stand for... that's the way I've always wanted it." She is not married, but she has many nieces and nephews, and she is considered an aunt to the Ryans' two children's two children. "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone would want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me." I wouldn't go rushing into something new, but I do think a great deal about it." A woman she had been with one man since 1997, around the time when she considered going out of music to have a family, but she discovered she was putting pressure on herself, "going the way I wanted to go." "I'll pray," she says, but I prefer going into churches when they're empty."

Enya purchased a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin, for £2.5 million at auction in 1997. It was previously known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle until the house was named Manderley Castle in Daphne du Maurier's book Rebecca. All in all, she spent seven years renovating her house and adding significant security equipment. Enya spent around €300,000 on defense upgrades in 2005, covering up cracks in the castle's outer wall and adding bollards and iron railings. Two people broke into the house in October 2005; one of her housekeepers was assaulted and tied up, leaving one of Enya's possessions empty.

Enya has captured the attention of many stalkers since the 1980s. After being barred from the premises, an Italian man who was seen wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub in 1996.

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Career

Several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band that later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, as tour manager and administrator. Enya deferred her decision not to pursue a music degree at university in 1980 and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group. Nicky Ryan needed an additional vocalist and keyboards to round out their sound. Enya appeared on their sixth studio album, Crann ll (1980), as well as siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, as well as twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. On the front cover, she appeared on their following album, Fuaim (1981), and was photographed as a member of the band. Nicky said it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member and that she was "fully independent [...] intent on playing her own songs." She was just not sure how to do it. This sparked discussions between the two artists on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one," a term influenced by producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique that piqued both of them.

Nicky requested a band meeting to address internal problems that had arisen on a Clannad tour in 1982. "It was short and just needed a vote," he said, "I was a minority of one and lost." Roma and I were ruled out. This led to the question of what happened with Enya. "I decided to stand back and say nothing." Enya preferred to leave the Ryans and pursue a solo career because she felt trapped in the company and disliked being "somebody in the background" and wanted to leave "somebody in the background." At first, this caused some friction between the two groups, but they later resolved their differences.

Nicky suggested to Enya that she return to Gweedore "with no particular future," or live with him and Roma in the Dublin suburb of Artane "and see what happens, musically," and she accepted the latter plan. Enya's mother sold her saxophone and piano lessons for children, and the Ryans used what they could afford to build a recording studio on Danieli Drive, which they referred to as "eagle" in French, and they rented out to other musicians to help cover the bill. The trio formed Aigle Music, a music company founded in Enya, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma as her lyricist, and Roma as her lyricist. Enya began to develop her style and composition over the next two years by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music and repeating the process until she began to improvise sections and create her own arrangements. "An Taibhse Uaighneach," an Irish version of "The Lonely Ghost," was her first composition. Enya worked as the synthesizer on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad N Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy during this period.

Enya's first solo venture began in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghrian" -- Irish for "The Solar Wind" -- and "Miss Clare Remembers" at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, with Touch Travel (1984), a limited edition cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. In the liner notes, she is identified as Eithne N. Bhraonáin. Enya's first live solo performance at the National Stadium in Dublin on September 23, 1983, and was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk, despite months of preparation. Niall Morris, a singer who performed with her at the time, recalled she was "so afraid she couldn't get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the show was over."

Morris helped Enya with the production of a demo tape, adding keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying pictures, and then sent it to several film makers. Among them was David Puttnam, who loved the tape and begged Enya to write the soundtrack to his forthcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya received nine pieces for the film, but Richard Myhill later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes; except for two that she performed, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams," which were written by Charlie McGettigan. Jim Clark, a film editor, said the rearrangements were necessary because Enya found it difficult to get to picture. Since Nicky Ryan's concern that "Eithne" will be mispronounced by several non-Irish speakers, she suggested that the phonetic spelling of her name be changed, the album was the first commercial release that credits her as Enya. Enya reflected on the film's composition work as a good career move, but it ended in a sad one because "we weren't involved in it at the end." Christy Moore later appeared on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985).

Producer Tony McAuley of 1985 asked Enya to produce a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written "The March of the Celts" a Celtic-influenced song and submitted it to the program. Each episode was supposed to feature a different composer at first, but producer David Richardson loved her music so much, he'd even had Enya score the entire series. Enya produced 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London, without a recording to picture, although she was expected to perform such themes and concepts as the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she performed with no interference that allowed her freedom to develop her sound throughout her career, as shown by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church, and folk music.

Enya's debut solo album, Enya, was released in March 1987 by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and America's First Records, Enya. Nicky later said that the former had a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later described as "a coward thing for them to do." The album attracted enough public attention to land at number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart to place number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69. Enya's first single, "I Want Tomorrow," was released. The Fugees' "Ready or Not" was sampled on their 1996 album "Ready or Not"; the group never asked permission nor gave credit, and Enya took court action; The company regained credit and paid a $3 million fine. Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra in 1986, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old" instead.

Enya's chairman and a Clannad fan were keen to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before going to bed." He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting in Dublin at the Irish Recorded Music Association's award ceremony, finding Enya's talks with a rival label had begun. Dickins seizes the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music for £75,000, giving her the opportunity to write and record with minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. "You sign an act to make money, but then you sign an act to make music," Dickins said. This was clearly the former... "I just wanted to be involved with this band." Enya left Atlantic and signed Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.

Enya released Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988 with the permission to record a new studio album. It was first recorded in analog at Aigle Studio before Dickins ordered to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Following its introduction in 1990 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, Watermark became an unexpected hit, peaking at number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. "Orinoco Flow," the album's lead single, was written. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans opted for it after Dickins begged for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing that Enya's music was not intended for the Top 40 chart. In the song's lyrics, Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are mentioned. "Orinoco Flow" became a worldwide top ten hit and was the No. 1 in the United Kingdom for three weeks. Enya's latest success has brought her international recognition, and she has been granted endorsement contracts and invitations to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year in Asia to promote the album, which has increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances.

Enya purchased new recording equipment and started working on her next album, Shepherd Moons, after promoting Watermark. "I kept wondering, should this have gone on Watermark?" She discovered that the success of Watermark put on a lot of pressure when it came to writing new songs.

Is it as good?'

I eventually had to forget about it and start with a blank canvas and just go with what felt right." Enya produced songs based on various themes, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons' first album was released in November 1991 under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It was a greater commercial success than Watermark, with one week as the UK's top-one and number 17 in the United States. Its lead single, "Caribbean Blue," debuted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom, ranked at number thirteen.

In 1991, Warner Music released a set of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. Enya received her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons in 1993. Enya and Nicky began discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, a George Lucas-founded company, shortly after, but nothing came out of the meetings. Warner won the rights to Enya in November 1992 and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial retail sales results, ranking at number ten in the United Kingdom.

Enya began writing and recording her fourth album, The Memory of Trees, after traveling around the world to support Shepherd Moons. In November 1995, the album was released. It ranked fifth in the United Kingdom and nine in the United States, where it had sold more than 3 million copies. "Anywhere Is," the company's lead single, debuted in the United Kingdom, achieving number seven. In the United Kingdom, the second, "On My Way Home," ranked at number twenty-six. Enya Records released The Christmas EP in late 1994. Enya had been invited to write Titanic's score but ultimately refused. A video of her singing "O'che Chin," an Irish-language version of "Silent Night," was released on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, which was a compilation of her performances for the Special Olympics in October 1997.

"Trying to choose the obvious ones, the hits, and others" early 1997, Enya began to pick tracks for her debut compilation album. Following the success of The Memory of Trees, she felt it was the right time in her career and that her deal with WEA required her to debut a "best of" album. The collection, titled Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". The album, which was released in November 1997, was a worldwide commercial success, peaking at No. 111. In the United Kingdom and No. 1, there are 4 on the UK and No. 1 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it was the 30th in the country, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. In 1997, "Only If..." was published as a single. "Like a musical diary," Enya's album reads, "every melody has a little tale and I live through the whole story from the beginning...your mind goes back to the day and what you were thinking."

Enya began working on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed that the use of a string section in her compositions was a deliberate decision at first, but that it complimented the songs that had been written. The album was released in November 2000 and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and at a record high of 17 in the United States.

Following the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time," soared after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the attacks, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem." The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to reach the top of the Billboard 200, as well as the introduction of a maxi-single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya also donated funds to the International Association of Firefighters. The album debuted on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and debuted on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting single to date.

Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), at the behest of director Peter Jackson. Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an unusual omission to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Annron" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be" sung in English and another Tolkien word, Quenya, after flying to New Zealand to observe the shooting and watch a rough cut of the film. Shore based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to produce "a seamless sound." Enya released "May It Be" as a single in 2002, earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.

In 2001 and 2002, Enya undertook additional studio constructions. The first was a work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Appassionati (2001), which was later released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is made up of songs from Enya to A Day Without Rain, which includes two B-sides. The album debuted at number two in Japan and became Enya's second best-selling one million copies in the region.

Enya returned to Aigle Studio in September 2003 to begin recording her sixth studio album, Amarantine. The name Roma means "everlasting," Roma said. Enya performed in Loxian for the first time, using a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was writing on "Water Shows the Undiscovered Heart." Roma suggested a new term based on some of Enya's favorite sounds while developing her songs after multiple attempts to perform the song in English, Irish, and Latin. It was a success, and Enya performed "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma continued to work on the language, inventing a "culture and history" behind it concerning the Loxians, who are from another world and questioning the existence of life on another planet. In Japanese, "Sumire (Wild Violet)" is sung. Amarantine was a global success, ranking number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the United Kingdom, and number 8 in the United Kingdom. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the United States, a significant drop in sales relative to her previous albums. Following Enya's death in 2003, Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had requested Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts. In December 2005, the lead single, "Amarantine," was released.

Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway, in June 2007. She received one from the University of Ulster a month later.

And Winter Came, Enya's seventh studio album, continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme. She had intended to create an album of seasonal songs and hymns for a release in late 2007, but decided against making a winter-themed collection.

The track "My!

My!

Time Flies!

"A tribute to late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner includes a guitar solo by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya record since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include references to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for Abbey Road's front page. And Winter Came... ranked No. 1 on its first appearance in November 2008, reaching No. 71. In the United Kingdom and No. 6, there are 6 out of a hundred in the UK and No. 0. By 2011, there were 8 in the United States and almost 3.5 million copies globally.

Enya took a long break from writing and recording music after promoting And Winter Came... She spent her time in Australia, visiting family and building her new home. Her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD style with bonus tracks in March 2009. The Very Best of Enya, her second compilation album, was released in November 2009 and includes songs from 1987 to 2008, as well as a DVD compiling the majority of her music videos to date. "Only Time" was used in Volvo Trucks' "Epic Split" commercial starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, who does the splits when suspended between two lorries.

Enya returned to the studio in 2012 to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated as a dark-sky reserve, as well as a series of poems about islands by Roma Ryan. Dark Sky Island debuted on November 20, 2015, on a no. 20. Enya's top charting studio album after Shepherd Moons dropped to No. 4 in the United Kingdom, and Enya's highest charting studio album since Shepherd Moons dropped to No. 1. From No. 1, and to No. 2. In the United States, there are 8 people. There are three new songs in A Deluxe Edition. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, as well as Japan. Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka on her visit to Japan. Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork in December 2016, marking her first appearance in over seven years on Irish television. "Adeste Fideles," "Oiche Chiin," and "The Spirit of Christmas Past" were among her "Adeste Fideles" and "The Spirit of Christmas Past" by the singer.

A "watch party" video from Enya's official YouTube channel in November 2020 was posted on Enya's official YouTube channel to celebrate A Day Without Rain's 20th anniversary. On the 30th anniversary of Shepherd Moons, the three did the same thing on November 4th, 2021. Nicky Ryan's introduction said that they used the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio and buy new recording equipment and instruments, and that Enya will begin working on new music as a result of the project's completion.

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