”Storyteller” is the tenth original album from the award-winning Norwegian-Irish act Secret Garden. Here, long-time musical partners Rolf Lovland and Fionnuala Sherry include three brand new songs with three distinct vocalists – ”Strength” (featuring Espen Grjotheim), ”Beautiful” (Brian Kennedy) and ”Sunshine” (Cathrine Iversen) sit alongside and complement the undeniably unique instrumental universe that has been charming global audiences for over 20 years, and earned the act 113 Platinum awards from multiple countries around the world.
Special for this new album is also the presentation of four melodies from Lovland’s first-ever musical-in-making, ”The Pilot”. ”Parallel to this album,” says the Norwegian composer, “I’ve composed music for a new musical. It’s a musical based on playwright Henrik Ibsen’s story ”Terje Vigen” from 1861, and though it will not premiere before 2021, we decided to use some previews of the music for this album, as it’s all a natural part of the writing process”.
Differing from the duo’s last studio album ”Just The Two Of Us”, “Storyteller” is a full-scale production with band, top-line instrumentalists from Norway and Ireland, and the world-renowned Czech National Symphony Orchestra, recorded in Prague. ”As always, we wanted the production to reflect the dual nationality of Secret Garden by merging Norwegian and Irish players,” says violinist Fionnuala Sherry. “Sessions in Norway and in Ireland, as well as London and Prague, create a great palette of musical colours in our own Secret Garden blend.”
Secret Garden remains one of the world’s most successful instrumental acts, with total sales of over five million albums to date. Career musical highlights include the Eurovision Song Contest-winning song ”Nocturne” (1995), the Barbra Streisand wedding song ”I’ve Dreamed of You” (1998), and the globally-admired ”You Raise Me Up” – the most covered song of the 21st century, now recorded by more than 1,000 artists, and in countless languages.
”Storyteller” will be released globally through Universal Music Norway/Global Classics and Jazz on 26th April 2019.
For the latest Secret Garden news, go to secretgarden.no