Eimear Quinn

Eimear Quinn at the Het Grote Songfestivalfeest 2019

Eimear Quinn (born December 18, 1972 in Dublin ) is an Irish singer. She became internationally known by winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996 . With the song The Voice , which is based on traditional Irish Gaelic folk songs, she prevailed over the competition by a large margin. The single reached number 40 in the UK charts, number 21 in the Netherlands, number 31 in Sweden and number 3 in their homeland.

Music career

Dublin born Eimear Quinn joined her first choir at the age of four, and at the age of 15 she began taking formal singing lessons at the College of Music under the direction of Jody Beggan. She later graduated from the National University of Ireland Maynooth in Music. While studying for her degree, she developed an interest in the pre-classical music and was previously a founding member of the Zefiro Ensemble .

In 1995 she joined the Anúna Choir . She recorded two albums: Omnis (1996) and Deep Dead Blue (1996), where she was a soloist on some of the pieces. She also traveled internationally with the choir and took part in performances in Spain, France and Great Britain. While she sang with Anúna at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Christmas 1995, the composer Brendan Graham heard her and invited her to sing his composition The Voice as Ireland's contribution to the Irish ESC preliminary round. Her performance won, after which she traveled to Oslo and she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996 . Quinn began touring solo and has performed in Australia, America and across Europe and in locations such as the Royal Albert Hall , the Sydney State Theater and Brussels National Park. She has also made many television appearances and has presented television and radio programs for RTÉ and TV3.

Quinn has worked with a large number of international composers on numerous musical and television projects. Among these were appearances and co-writing of the score for the Belgian drama series Stille Waters with Steve Willaert . She performed Voice of an Angel on Liam Lawton's album Another World .

In 2006, Quinn released the album Gatherings , a collection of music she recorded in the previous decade. That was Eimear's third record, followed by Winter Fire and Snow and Through the Lens of a Tear , an album she wrote with Pol Brennan of Clannad , who also released the album. Quinn performed The Voice later that year during Ireland's Finest in Concert, a gala to mark the national concert hall's 25th anniversary. This performance was broadcast on RTÉ television and the concert was released on DVD.

In 2007 Quinn was selected by the National University of Ireland to promote the study of music at NUI Maynooth in a nationwide campaign. In the same year, she worked with film producer Philip King to complete a documentary for RTÉ1 that featured her music and the collaboration with Belfast-born composer Neil Martin.

In December 2007, O Holy Night was released, a collection of Christmas carols, ancient chants and compositions by Quinn, which the album also designed and released with Martin Quinn at JAM Studios. This resulted in her presenting a television special called A Christmas Celebration with Eimear Quinn on RTÉ1 in December 2008.

Since then, Quinn has composed and toured. In 2011 she was asked to perform for England's Queen Elizabeth to mark her state visit to Ireland. In August 2012 she performed at The Gathering Concert at the O2 in Dublin. She performed a special concert with the symphony orchestra in the National Concert Hall in Dublin in October 2012. In October 2013 she performed as part of the RTÉ Big Music Week Ensemble . This group, which included Marianne Knight, Nono Madolo and Celine Byrne, along with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the UCD choral scholars , published The Fair, Fair Land . The piece, which was composed by Brendan Graham, was used for Barnardo's Children's Welfare and reached number 34 in the Irish charts.

Private life

Quinn lives in County Monaghan with her husband, Noel Curran, a radio and television producer and current RTÉ General Manager. They have two daughters: Joelene, born in October 2009 and Marlene, born in April 2012.

Discography

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

O Holy Night   IE 70 12/13/2007 (2 weeks)

Singles

The Voice   IE 3 05/16/1996 (10 weeks)   UK 40 06/15/1996 (2 weeks)

Albums

• 2001: Through the Lens of a Tear
• 2006: Gatherings
• 2007: Oh Holy Night

Singles and EPs

• 1996: The Voice
• 1996: Winter, Fire and Snow EP
• 1997: Ave Maria
• 2016: The Mother

Web links

• Official website
• Eimear Quinn in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Eimear Quinn at Discogs (English)

swell

1. ^ Eimear Quinn and Friends Sing a Song for Ireland . Wiwi Bloggs. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
2. ↑ Top 100 Singles Week Ending 10th October 2013 . IRMA. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: IE1 IE2 UK