Women Music March #7 — Loreena McKennitt

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM OM (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian musician, composer, harpist, accordionist, and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes.

From Loreena’s website:
Loreena McKennitt is well known as a composer and singer. In a recording career spanning more than two decades, Ms. McKennitt’s ‘eclectic Celtic’ music has received critical acclaim world-wide, and gold, platinum and multi-platinum sales awards in 15 countries across four continents. To date, she has sold over 14 million albums with a catalogue that includes seven studio recordings, three seasonal recordings, a live in-concert DVD and two DVD documentaries.  She’s won two Junos, Canada’s premiere music award, garnered two GRAMMY^® nominations and has performed for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Less well known is the fact that Ms. McKennitt is a highly successful businesswoman who has created an independent record label with celebrated international success.

Born in Morden, Manitoba, Canada, she moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1981, where she initially worked with Canada’s renowned Stratford Festival. In 1985 she established her own record label, Quinlan Road, a move which has made her a rarity in the music industry.

The Book of Secrets is her sixth studio album, released in 1997. It reached #17 on the Billboard 200. The album is certified double-platinum in the United States. It has now sold more than four million copies worldwide.

“The Mummers’ Dance” was released as a single and was a surprise hit in the United States, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 3 on the Adult Top 40 chart, and No. 17 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

The song refers to the seasonal Mummers Play performed by groups of actors, often as house-to-house visits. Its lyrics indicate a springtime holiday.

The song was used as the theme for the TV series Legacy. It was also featured in the trailer for the film Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore, and in the soundtrack of the Brazilian telenovela Corpo Dourado. A music video was also produced for the selection.

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon
In the blue veil of the night
The shadows of the trees appear
Amidst the lantern light

We’ve been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

Who will go down to those shady groves
And summon the shadows there
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
In the springtime of the year

The songs of birds seem to fill the wood
That when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
Long past their woodland days

We’ve been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

And so they linked their hands and danced
Round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
When all the shades are gone

A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
It is a sprout well budded out
The work of our Lord’s hand

We’ve been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay

We’ve been rambling all the night
And some time of this day
Now returning back again
We bring a garland gay
Songwriters: Loreena Mckennitt