She attended Loreto Community School in Milford, County Donegal and then moved away to attend college wanting to become a classical pianist, continuing her studies in music and also studying watercolour painting.Įnya has four brothers and four sisters, several of whom formed the band An Clann As Dobhar in 1968. From a young age, Enya appeared in many pantomimes onstage at Gweedore's local theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's Catholic Church, Derrybeg.
Her grandparents were in a band that played throughout Ireland, her father was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band before opening Leo's Tavern, and her mother played in a dance band and later taught music at Pobalscoil Ghaoth Dobhair. Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect of the Irish language, her native tongue. She is part of an Irish-speaking, Catholic musical family, the sixth of nine children. A sign for Leo's Tavern in Gweedore, which reads "The home of Clannad & Enya"Įnya was born and raised in Gweedore, County Donegal, in the northwest corner of Ireland. Life and career 1961–83: Musical upbringing and Clannad 1.7 2009–present: The Very Best of Enya and eighth studio album.1.4 1992–99: The Celts, The Memory of Trees, and Paint the Sky with Stars.1.3 1988–91: International breakthrough, Watermark and Shepherd Moons.1.1 1961–83: Musical upbringing and Clannad.2.7 2009–present: The Very Best of Enya and eighth studio album.2.6 2005–08: Amarantine and And Winter Came.2.4 1992–99: The Celts, The Memory of Trees, and Paint the Sky with Stars.2.3 1988–91: International breakthrough, Watermark and Shepherd Moons.2.1 1961–83: Musical upbringing and Clannad.Her work has earned her four Grammy Awards and an Academy Award nomination. Her record sales stand at more than 75 million worldwide, including over 26.5 million in album sales in the US, making her one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. She is Ireland's best-selling solo musician. She received the world's best-selling female award at the World Music Awards in 2001. Įnya continued to enjoy steady success during the 1990s and 2000s her 2000 album A Day Without Rain sold 15 million copies, and became the top selling new age album of the 2000s in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Shortly afterwards, her 1988 album Watermark propelled her to further international fame and she became known for her distinctive sound, characterised by voice-layering, folk melodies, synthesised backdrops and ethereal reverberations. She gained wider recognition for her music in the 1987 BBC series The Celts. Maybe next time.Enya (born Eithne Ní Bhraonáin Irish pronunciation:, anglicised as Enya Brennan ) is an Irish singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter who is one of Moya Brennan's younger sisters.Įnya began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to perform solo. But after a couple of decades, I was hoping she might try something new. If you love what Enya has done in the past, then rejoice - here's more of the same. Vocal layering, through which Enya makes of herself a chorus, is once again predominant throughout.ĭon't get me wrong, Amarantine isn't a bad album. And that's about all the oomph to be found. And, damn it all, that's one of the Loxian songs.
It isn't until track 5, "The River Sings," that Enya delivers any oomph in her music. They fade easily into the background, which might be good for meditating or, dare I say it, riding on elevators, but doesn't make for strong impressions. The songs are primarily soft, gentle, almost ambient. By god, a lot of the lyrics in the liner notes are printed in Elvish (pardon me, Loxian) in a special rune-like font made up primarily of slashes and arrows. What's Loxian? It's an invented language, devised by Roma Ryan for this album and drawing heavily on Tolkien's Elvish tongue for inspiration. There isn't much new ground broken here.ĭrifting still further from her Celtic roots, Enya sings less in Gaelic this time around and more in - I swear, I'm not making this up - Loxian. Hasn't she done this all before? Yup, several times. Where Enya's earlier music resounded through the listener's imagination, in part because of its unique nature, the songs on Amarantine sound bland and overly familiar. Unfortunately, Enya's latest album, Amarantine, was only worth the five-year wait for her most devoted fans. Deeply rooted in Celtic mysticism - Enya, after all, has close family ties to the once-trad Irish band Clannad - the ethereal music brought legions of new listeners to a genre loosely defined as "Celtic" and borrowing strongly from the growing field of new-age ambience. When Enya released her first few albums, her sound was refreshing and new.