Track Listing

1. Last Rose Of Summer/Walking In The Air
2. May It Be
3. Isle Of Inisfree
4. Danny Boy
5. One World
6. Ave Maria
7. Send Me A Song
8. Siulil A Run
9. Orinoco Flow
10. Someday
11. She Moved Thru' The Fair
12. Nella Fantasia
13. The Butterfly
14. Harry's Game
15. The Soft Goodbye
16. You Raise Me Up
17. The Ashoken Farewell/The Contradiction
18. Si Do Mhaimeo I

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1068 in Music
• Brand: PBS
• Released on: 2005-03-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
Fueled by healthy public appetite for traditional melodies and quasi-ethnic roots, the crossover genre continues to flourish with this debut release from Ireland's Celtic Woman ensemble. The brainchild of Sharon Browne, Dave Kavanaugh (founders of Ireland's successful Celtic Collections label) and young Riverdance touring company musical director David Downes, CW's five young women musicians and vocalists offer up an ever pleasant, Eire-savvy fusion of folk, pop and classical influences. Avoiding the intrusive, club-beat/sex kitten window dressing of Bond, the ensemble tackles material that ranges from the expected (spare, lovely covers of "Danny Boy" and "Ave Maria") to more adventurous fare like "Nella Fantasia" (Ennio Morricone's vocal adaptation of his rapturous theme from The Mission) and Enya's "Orinoco Flow." Elsewhere, "The Butterfly" offers up fiddle-fueled take on their Riverdance parallels (which also get a workout on the live bonus tracks), if renditions of Downes' originals like "One World" and "Send Me a Song" and "Someday" from Disney's animated Hunchback of Notre Dame hew slavishly to the middle of the road -- which largely seems the album's easy-listening intention. --Jerry McCulley