Enya

Irish singer-songwriter

Ireland • b. 1961-05-17

Biography

Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɛnʲə pˠɑːdʲɾʲəɟiːnʲ nʲiː vˠɾ˝eːnɑːnʲ]) (born 17 May 1961) better known as Enya, is an Irish singer and composer. With an estimated equivalent of more than 80 million albums sold, Enya is one of the world's best-selling music artists; she is the best-selling Irish solo artist, and the second-best-selling music act from Ireland overall, after the band U2. Enya's music has been widely recognised for its use of multi-layers of her own vocals and instrumentation, lengthened reverb, and interwoven elements of Celtic music. Raised in the Irish-speaking region of Gweedore, Enya began her musical career in 1980, playing alongside her family's Irish folk band, Clannad. She left Clannad in 1982 to pursue a solo career, working with the former Clannad manager and producer, Nicky Ryan, and his partner Roma Ryan as their lyricist. Over the following four years, Enya further developed her sound by combining multi-tracked vocals and keyboards with elements from a variety of musical genres, such as Celtic, classical, Gregorian chant, church, jazz, hip-hop, ambient, world, and Irish folk. Her earliest solo releases were two piano/synthesiser instrumentals for the Touch Travel T4 cassette compilation (1984). She composed the majority of the soundtrack for The Frog Prince (1985), and sang two songs with lyrics for the project. She also composed the soundtrack for the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, a selection of which BBC Records released that year as her debut album Enya. She signed with Warner Music UK, and the success of her second studio album, Watermark (1988), propelled Enya to worldwide fame, primarily through the single "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)". She released the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), the box set A Box of Dreams, first compilation album Paint the Sky with Stars (both released in 1997) and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the 2000 album and its lead single,

Bio from Wikipedia