Meav

Instead she has surpassed all of her dreams. Méav has toured the world as sole vocalist with the RTE Concert Orchestra, as a principal soloist with the Celtic Choral group Anuna, as Erin the Goddess in Lord of the Dance, in the London and Dublin productions of Riverdance and as a soloist with the Irish National Chamber Choir. She has headlined a festival as part of the Korean World Cup celebrations, performed at a prestigious Celtic Festival in Tokyo and sang in the Beo Festival of Irish Music at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. She has also recorded two solo albums which have been very successful worldwide and particularly in the USA, Japan and South Korea. In the last twelve months, Meav has also received two gold discs as one of the five featured soloists in ‘Celtic Woman’, whose highly successful DVD and CD released by EMI topped the World Music Charts for over a year. Meav’s solo compilation album Celtic Journey also debuted in the Billboard World Music top ten on its release in February.

Méav was raised in a home steeped in classical and Irish traditional music and she studied singing, harp and piano from an early age. “Music was just a natural part of my life growing up, but I wasn’t always sure I wanted to pursue it as a career” she says. Méav followed in her brother’s footsteps and went to law school at Trinity College Dublin. The flexible timetable also left a lot of time for singing with various musical groups and ever since graduating from law school, the music has been gradually taking over.

Méav is best known for her classical and traditional singing, but she cites a broad range of musical influences, among them Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. “I think they’re amazing,” she explains, “because of how they tell a story.” As a fluent Gaelic-speaker, Meav’s other major influence has been traditional Gaelic music which she learned from her Gaelic-speaking father and her school where she was educated in Gaelic.

She gained valuable experience while working with Ireland’s two most prestigious choirs, Anuna and the National Chamber Choir – Ireland’s only full-time professional choir. Through Anuna she had the opportunity to perform with a wide variety of performers including Elvis Costello, Brian Kennedy and The Chieftains. “There’s always a bit of excitement about working with someone who comes from a different style,” she says. “I suppose you just bring whatever you have to the table and see what comes out of it.

This blending of styles is part of what excites her about the Celtic Woman project. “In Ireland, I’m considered between two different styles. There has always been a divide between the traditional and the classical musical scenes but I felt comfortable enough in both because that’s where my family came from. I was delighted when Sharon Browne of Celtic Collections and David Downes came up with the idea of Celtic Woman because it seemed to combine those two elements by taking songs; some traditional and some contemporary, and giving them an orchestral treatment. It sounded like a good fit for me and I was pleased that they brought singers of different styles together.”

Some of the songs that Méav sings in the show are standards, such as ‘Danny Boy’. It can be challenging to perform these standards in a new way. “You have to sing it as if you’ve never sung it before and as if the people who are listening have never heard it before,” Méav explains. “I was lucky that our arrangement was deceptively simple which brought out the feeling of the song. You hear a song so often it can switch you off, but I think the melody of Danny Boy is so lovely that it’s worth doing - even though we’ve all heard it a hundred times in Irish bars across the world,” she laughs. “It’s a question of stripping it back to its essence and trying to find what it was that made it appealing to people in the first place.”

One aspect of her career that has surprised Méav has been her success in Asia where her singing falls into a category called ‘Healing Music.’ “I suspect that people leading an increasingly urban life want to go back to a simpler style of music. In the States, the romantic idea of Ireland is certainly part of the appeal,” she continues. “Even though the place that they’re thinking of may be fast disappearing in modern Ireland, it’s still part of our folk memory. Everybody has a desire to escape to somewhere in their mind that is simpler and slower-paced. Also, the songs are about universal themes. You don’t have to be Irish to make that connection.”

As she always has, Méav continues to draw on the influences around her as she progresses through her own career. The opportunity to sing with an orchestra in “Celtic Woman” has made her want to use lusher orchestrations in her solo work and she wants to continue singing a repertoire rich in both contemporary and traditional pieces.

2005 was a momentous year for Meav in more ways than one and she is delighted to be back on tour with Celtic Woman after spending the first year at home with her new baby daughter. “Music is part of what I am” she says “and it’s a thrill to be performing again for our loyal fans”.

More information about Méav can be obtained on her website www.meav.com. Up
Down
2007
Jan 1
CW perform on The Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular on NBC at 3pm EST

2006
Dec 25
CW perfrom You Raise Me Up on DasErste Christams Gala in Germany

Dec 22
CW perform Let It Snow on the Megan Mullaly Show

Dec 18
CW CD is certified platinum in US

Dec 6
A Christmas Celebration at No 35 of BB Top 200 Charts

November 30
A Christmas Celebration is certified gold in S Africa

November 29
Return from S Africa

November 23
CW fly to S Africa for a weeks promotional tour

October 25
A Christmas Celebration is No 1 in the Billboard World Music Charts.
Celtic Woman is now at No 2

October 17
Japanese tour ends in Tokyo

October 10
Japanese tour starts in Fukuoka

October 3
Celtic Woman 'A Christmas Celebration' is released

Sept 10
DVD goes gold in Australia

Sept 4
CD hits Number 20 in the German charts

Aug 23 & 24
Celtic Woman film their new show, A New Journey, in Slane Castle

July 12
CW has been confirmed as No 1 in the Billboard World Music Charts for the 68th week. We now hold the record for the longest ever artist to be at No 1

July 11
Summer tour starts in a very wet Chicago

May 22
CD & DVD released in UK

May 12
CW record 'Beyond The Sea' for Toyota Estima Hybrid CM Ad - Japan only

May 8
Girls return to Ireland

May 7
Third US tour ends in Portland

April 1
CD is No 1 on Billboard World Music Chart for 52 weeks.

March 25
CD No 53 in the Billboard Top 200 Chart – New peak position

March 23
Gold in Japan

March 17 & 18
Sold out concerts in Radio City Music Hall

March 17
Performed live on Regis & Kelly

March 16
No 1 on the Japanese International Album Chart (Oricon)

March 15
Gold in South Africa

March 8
Third US tour begins in Toronto

March 4
Olympic figure skating gold medalist Shizuko Arakawa skated to
Your Raise Me Up

February 19
CW fly to Japan for a promotional tour

February 18
CW perform in the Point Depot in Dublin, Ireland

February 1
CW CD & DVD released in Japan

January 21
All CW solo albums enter the top 20 of the Billboard World Music
Charts with the CW still at no 1 for the 48th week

January 10
CW solo albums released

2005
December 6
CW Boxset availabe exclusively to PBS stations

December 1
CD certified gold & DVD certified platinum

November 18
CD & DVD released in Irealnd with CW performing on the Late Late Show

November 8
Perform in Carnegie Hall, New York

October 6
Perform in the Greek Theatre, LA

October 5
Fall tour starts in Phoenix

August 27
DVD No 16 in Top Music DVD Chart – New peak position

August 14
First US tour ends in Sacramento

August 10
DVD is certified gold

August 1
Perform in Wolf Trap, Vienna

July 26
Perform in Bank of American Pavillion, Boston

July 20
First US tour starts in Cleveland taking in 19 concerts in the whole tour

June 30
191 PBS stations aired the CW show during their June pledge with a total of 406 broadcasts

March 19
No 1 in Billboard World Music Charts & No 22 on New Artist Chart

March 18
CD & DVD No 1 on Amazon Charts

March 1
Celtic Woman CD & DVD released in the US

2004
September
The 1st ever Celtic Woman Show performed and recorded in the Helix, Dublin