North American Tour 2007

[Stephany]

Hi everyone,
Reviews for yesterday's CW show in Los Angeles are popping up on the net.
Looks like the CW fans are glad to see Hayley back.
Mairead had her right leg partially bandaged up, though. Hope she is well !
Here are some excerpts.

From Lisa's forum.

Hayley: I loved how she added her own style to Dulaman. Hayley performed Dulaman in her own style and it was also great! Hayley pronounced everthing so perfect it seemed like her first language was Gaelic. I know Hayley has a beautiful voice and she really proved it at the show. I could tell Hayley is still adjusting to "being part of a group" but I saw that she really enjoys sharing the stage with the people she might consider her family now.

From the CW forum[/url].

Hayley did perfect job and Chloe & Hayley surprised me with The Last Rose of Summer because I thought only Meav and Hayley could do this one but I was sooo wrong. Chloe and Hayley did a terrific performance!

[Stephany]

Hayley is doing a show tonight with the CW group in San Diego.
A local paper has published an article about it. (source: SignOnSanDiego.com).

Note that both her first name and surname have been misspelled. Grrrr!!

Celtic Woman's elaborate show reflects a changing Ireland
By Andrew Gilbert
UNION-TRIBUNE
May 7, 2007

For fans of traditional Irish music, these are the best of times.
Rather than melting away in the face of the Celtic Tiger's economic boom, the Irish music scene is awash with brilliant, young musicians dedicated to exploring and expanding their musical heritage. Extensive U.S. tours over the past decade by virtuosic bands such as Lunasa, Danu, Dervish, Kila and Altan have won new converts to traditional Irish music's sublime melodies and churning rhythms.

So what to make of the Celtic Woman phenomenon? With a slick, platinum-selling CD and DVD featuring a bevy of gifted young Irish singers and instrumentalists, the elaborate stage show has become inescapable, particularly on PBS stations, which seem to feel that pledge-week broadcasts are the key to viewers' checkbooks. Between the self-named 2005 debut CD and last year's “A Christmas Celebration,” Celtic Woman has dominated the top spot on the Billboard World Music chart for more than two years.

With the release of “A New Journey” (Manhattan Records), the Celtic Woman women are set to reconquer America with another lavish production. The show comes to Copley Symphony Hall tonight at the start of a five-month North American tour.

“I think the show reflects that Ireland today is a very different country, even going back 10 years,” said Orla Fallon, a gifted harpist and singer fluent in Gaelic. “It's a very confident, vibrant country, and we're very proud of our achievements. We've come a long way from being one of the poorest countries in the world. We're absolutely flying now in every way.”

One could interpret Celtic Woman as a sign of confidence, but the show's hard-sell ethos also speaks to a more-is-more sensibility with little faith in an audience's attention span. Musical director David Downes' arrangements tend toward the operatic. In addition to Fallon, the production features the dazzling All-Ireland fiddle champion Mairead Nesbitt and vocalists Chloe Agnew, Lisa Kelly, Meav Ni Mhaolchatha and Haley Westerna backed by a six-piece band and a choir of eight.

With its sumptuous costumes and Broadway lighting, the show couldn't be more different than the cozy settings in which traditional Irish music has long thrived. Fallon, for instance, was weaned on songs and stories in her grandmother's house in County Kerry.

“I grew up as a traditional singer, and I was deeply immersed in music from the time I was a child,” Fallon said. “When I started with Celtic Woman, it was all new to me. I had never done choreography or been part of a big production. I had sung with orchestras and bands, but nothing of this caliber. I think all the girls would say they've learned so much.”

What's odd is that Celtic music's various strains are reaching an international audience like never before. The Celtic Woman musicians could enchant audiences with unfussy arrangements of traditional tunes and their original compositions, rather than putting an Irish spin on “Over the Rainbow” and the Bobby Darin vehicle “Beyond the Sea.” At a time when a well-heeled Ireland is exporting its wealth of musical talent out of pride rather than economic necessity, Celtic Woman doesn't feel like progress, though Fallon and the show's many fans would beg to differ.

“I think it's important to experiment and try new things, because music is very much a living thing,” she said. “You can't keep it in a box. We're trying loads of things and getting a very positive reaction from audiences, and the music seems to have touched people's hearts.”

[graemek]

Hi Stephany,
Thanks for the CW snippets.

You seem taken with the GRRRR !!!! expression.

Satisfying isn't it?

Graeme i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

[grant]

graemek said:

Hi Stephany,
Thanks for the CW snippets.

You seem taken with the GRRRR !!!! expression.

Satisfying isn't it?

Graeme i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

VERY!!

[Richard]

Hello Stephany and everybody!

Here's another very favourable comment about Hayley's performance in LA, from the Celtic Woman forum.

I was quite impressed w/ Hayley's performance last night at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. She has a very powerful voice that is reminiscent of Meav's, only she adds her own touch to it. She did a marvelous job on all of Meav's songs, and her rendition of Scarborough Fair was very well received. I can see why she is so popular in her own right.

Dianne

Richard

[Eric]

That a girl, Hayley!! Win those American hearts!! Woo-hoo!! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

[petertong]

stephany said:

Note that both her first name and surname have been misspelled. Grrrr!!

Hi Stephany,

I wouldn't blame them - there are virtually no Westenra's living here in the US... its a very uncommon name here... pretty amazing considering we have 300 million folks!

Peter

[Stephany]

Eric, looks like Hayley is definitely winning American hearts.
More comments from CW fans about yesterday's show :

See the original post here.I modified Hayley's name - it was misspelled once again.

I was very favorably surprised by Hayley's performance, which I hadn't seen previously except on the ANJ DVD. In person she is a more commanding presence than you might expect, and her vocals were forceful and touching. She didn't get into character to the extent that Meav does on "At the Ceili," but her rapport with the other girls was completely comfortable. The team really has not missed a beat with Hayley filling in on Meav's parts. My only wish is that Hayley might have been featured on a song that was unique to her in the production rather just substituting her presence for Meav's.

Another one, with the right spelling this time !
See the original post here.

Everybody performed so well. Hayley surprised me as well. And, I wasn't on the forums or anything until after this concert so I was surprised when I noticed she was doing Meav's parts and Meav wasn't there at all. Hayley did a great job covering her parts and she sounded so much like Meav in many of her songs! I was surprised that she could pull off Dulaman so perfectly!

See the original post here.

All the songs were amazing and I was very impressed by Hayley's ability to take over most of Meav's parts. It was hard to tell sometimes that it wasn't Meav's voice at all!

[Stephany]

Two more, particularly praising Hayley's rendition of "Dulaman".

See the original post here.

Hayley did an awesome job with Dulaman! I'm not saying it's better than Maeav's or that Meav's is better, but Hayley made performed it in her own way, which was pretty neat

See the original post here.

Hayley did do really well with Dulaman! Her voice was very energetic with this song in particular.

[Martin]

stephany said:

Eric, looks like Hayley is definitely winning American hearts.

Let's hope so and that it also results in more sales of Celtic Treasure.

Martin

[roger]

Hi Martin,

I am sure the present tour will increase sales of Celtic Treasure but will it increase sales enough to justify the time and effort that the tour will require? Unfortunately, nobody will ever know because it is impossible to tell how many albums would have been sold anyway if Hayley was not on the tour. These unknown factors must be a nightmare for Hayley's management team to have to predict.

Roger

[Martin]

roger said:

Hi Martin,

I am sure the present tour will increase sales of Celtic Treasure but will it increase sales enough to justify the time and effort that the tour will require? Unfortunately, nobody will ever know because it is impossible to tell how many albums would have been sold anyway if Hayley was not on the tour. These unknown factors must be a nightmare for Hayley's management team to have to predict.

Roger

I would agree Roger. Also, you would have to be a very good statistician and have access to sales figures of Celtic Treasure by US State in order to measure the effect of the tour with Hayley.

Martin

[Dave]

Hello Martin and Roger,

While I am sure sales of Celtic Treasure will be higher than otherwise because of the tour, there was never going to be a spectacular increase in sales and the record company would have known this. They only had to look at the sales performance of the individual members of CW last year when they all released solo albums... none of which did as well as Odyssey.

I think the main beneficiary from this tour, from Hayley's point of view, will be... Hayley herself! She does need an income to live and I don't think the record company can get their hands on much if any of her tour or concert income. More power to her elbow, I say! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Cheers, Dave

[Stephany]

dave said:

I think the main beneficiary from this tour, from Hayley's point of view, will be... Hayley herself!

Hi Dave,
I also think Hayley needed to experience something different. Touring with Celtic Woman has surely taught her a lot. Not too much for the singing - I'm particularly thinking about the moves and acting ("At the Ceili" is a good example).
Working with a group also implies making sure not to mess it all up for everyone else!
Best wishes,
Stephany

[Stephany]

A fan of Lisa Kelly posted a few pictures of the CW group in San Diego. I reduced the size of the picture featuring Hayley, so if you want to see it in higher resolution, click HERE to see the original post with all the pics.

Hayley looks in a very good mood i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif