Lamomali Secret Garden

Introducing the first new Secret Garden collection in 18 years. Secret Garden features Norwegian composer-keyboard artist Rolf Løvland and Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry. The band first came to international prominence when they won the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘Nocturne’, which features on this collection.

Storyteller is the first new studio album in over five years from Norwegian/Irish duo Secret Garden.
On the day of release (26 April 2019), Fionnuala Sherry and Rolf Løvland have this to say in their newsletter:
“Even though we had great success and response to our “Just the Two of US” album (one of our favourites ), “Live at Kilden” and “You Raise Me Up: The Collection”; “Storyteller” is very special and means so much to us both. From the initial concept of the album to the final mix, its been a truly wonderful journey of writing, arranging, recording, producing and working with some of the most wonderful incredible artists including the incredible Czech National Symphony Orchestra. We have traveled between Norway, Ireland, the UK and the Czech Republic to produce “Storyteller”…

Secret Garden, the Irish-Norwegian band specialist in new instrumental music is one of the world’s most successful duos with more than 3 billion streams and 5 million physical albums sold. Their upcoming 12th studio album “Songs in the Circle of Time”, is an enchanting blend of dreamy melodies and powerful arrangements, transporting listeners to a world of beauty and timeless elegance. The sources of inspiration are many and feel timeless, from 17th century baroque – classical music and contemporary melting into their own style.

Known for their lush and atmospheric, largely instrumental music, the Irish/Norwegian duo Secret Garden rose to fame in the mid-'90s and have since won an international following for their gentle but emotionally evocative sounds, dominated by violin and keyboards and combining notes of Celtic and Norwegian folk, pop, and new age styles. The duo first came together to write and perform the song "Nocturne," which became Norway's winning entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. While they would dabble in vocal music on 2007's Inside I'm Singing and pare back their arrangements on 2013's Just the Two of Us, the sizable majority of their releases saw them remaining loyal to their trademark sound, playing music that touched the hearts and soothed the souls of their many fans around the world. “Storyteller” is the tenth original album from the award-winning Norwegian-Irish act Secret Garden.

Secret Garden is Norwegian composer Rolf Loveland (piano, keyboards) and Irish violinist Fionnula Sherry. The album, however, offers much more than this duo; it is awash in orchestral strings (real ones), a choir (real one), and as many percussionists, harps, fiddles, keyboards, and whistles as are needed. Songs from a Secret Garden, a chart-topper in Europe, is unabashedly romantic, absolutely gorgeous. "Sigma," featuring boy soprano Rhonan Sugrue and the Irish National Choir, is very pensive, like dried flowers left, an expected return disappointed. The lyrics begin, "I search for the sign that will set my soul free." Although Celtic music fans will find many moments of bittersweet nostalgia between the violin, pipes, and pennywhistles, the album's closest musical relation might just be the intimate works of Maurice Ravel, particularly his "Pavanne for a Dead Princess"…

This is the first time Secret Garden has made a Christmas album. The recording is a collaboration with Cathrine Iversen, who is the soloist on all songs. The Christmas songs are new, original songs by Rolf Løvland, except the 500-year old “I Know a Rose Tree”.

Secret Garden's formula is plain to hear. They have the lush string orchestrations of Yanni, the layered vocals of Clannad and Enya, and the stage-show Celtica of Riverdance. In the past these elements have weighed down the music of Irish violinist Fionuala Sherry and Norwegian keyboardist Rolf Lovland with a sweetness that would make tiramisu taste like poi. On Dawn of a New Century, they finally dance closer to the line that divides schlock from serenity, beauty from the banal. Capercaillie singer Karen Matheson gives a haunting vocal performance on "Prayer," surrounded by Clannad-like harmonies. "Children of the River" is a cinematic expanse with Asian overtones, while "Lore of the Loom" swoops through orchestral landscapes that could be Ireland or Norway. But there's also the hokey faux-Baroque of "Divertimento" and the title piece, which could stand in for "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."

Secret Garden, the Irish-Norwegian band specialist in new instrumental music is one of the world’s most successful duos with more than 3 billion streams and 5 million physical albums sold. Their upcoming 12th studio album “Songs in the Circle of Time”, is an enchanting blend of dreamy melodies and powerful arrangements, transporting listeners to a world of beauty and timeless elegance. The sources of inspiration are many and feel timeless, from 17th century baroque – classical music and contemporary melting into their own style.

The global phenomenon of Secret Garden has been so far reaching that it's hard to believe the duo of Norwegian keyboardist/composer Rolf Lovland and Irish violinist Fionnuala Sherry have only recorded three previous studio albums in addition to their 2001 compilation, Dreamcatcher. Once in a Red Moon continues Secret Garden's tradition of organic storytelling melodies and straight-from-the-heart performances with a wink back to the innocence and raw simplicity of their debut. Lovland and Sherry felt that their second and third recordings, White Stones (1997) and Dawn of a New Century (1999), were conceived as larger-scale projects which would help build the scope of their live performance presentation…

Secret Garden's new album, Songs In The Circle Of Time, is an enchanting blend of dreamy melodies and powerful arrangements, transporting listeners to a world of beauty and timeless elegance. The sources of inspiration are many and feel timeless, from 17th-century baroque to classical and contemporary music melting into their own style. Secret Garden, the Irish-Norwegian band specialist in new instrumental music is one of the world’s most successful duos with more than 3 billion streams and 5 million physical albums sold.