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Enya

Enya (born Eithne Patricia Ní Bhraonáin on 17 May 1961, Gaoth Dobhair, County Donegal, Ireland), sometimes presented in the media as Enya Brennan, is an Irish singer and songwriter. She is Ireland's best-selling solo artist and is officially the country's second biggest musical export.Her works have earned her four Grammy Awards and an Academy Award nomination. Enya is an approximate tranion of how Eithne is pronounced in her native Irish, in the Donegal dialect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enya

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New Age Music

New Age music is a style of music originally associated with some New Age beliefs. It has its basis in the work of various 1960s European and American electronic and acoustic musicians, and is generally characterized as being primarily instrumental and repetitively melodic in nature. Recordings of nature sounds are sometimes used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. New Age music is typically relaxing and inspiring, and is often used by listeners for such activities as yoga, massage, meditation, reading, or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments.

New Age music is largely typified by modal and consonant harmonies, often in conjunction with sound effects or nature samples. New Age music includes both electronic and instrumental forms, frequently relying on sustained pads or long sequencer-based runs; and acoustic forms, featuring instruments such as flutes, piano, acoustic guitar and a wide variety of non-western acoustic instruments. In many cases, high-quality samples are used instead of natural acoustic instruments. Vocal arrangements were initially rare in New Age music but as it has evolved vocals have become more common, especially vocals featuring Sanskrit, Tibetan or Native American-influenced chants, or lyrics based on mythology such as Celtic legends or the realm of Faerie. Songs of up to 20 minutes duration are not uncommon. Some of these characteristics could equally be said to describe ambient music. The genre is also closely associated with space music, which many commentators and retailers clasify as one of its sub-sets, or apply as a deive term to some music by some New Age artists.

During the 1980s, the term "New Age music" was introduced more widely to the public by radio stations and then by music retailers and some record companies, as a marketing tag applied to a variety of non-mainstream instrumental music styles. Radio stations in major markets (such as "the Wave" in Los Angeles) defined themselves as "New Age", while playing some New Age music and using nature sounds in their station-id's, yet those stations also heavily featured styles musically and philosophically unrelated to New Age music, for example, Smooth Jazz. The first true New Age radio station is the U.S. was KLRS (Colors) in Santa Cruz, CA with a non-stop playlist of New Age music and is considered the first New Age station in the world. Most major cable television networks have channels that play music without visuals, including channels for New Age music, such as for example, the "Soundscapes" channel on Music Choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_age_music

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Enya

With her blend of folk melodies, synthesized backdrops, and classical motifs, Enya created a distinctive style that more closely resembled new age than the folk and Celtic music that provided her initial influences.

　　Enya is from Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland, which she left in 1980 to join the Irish band Clannad, the group that already featured her older brothers and sisters. She stayed with Clannad for two years, then left, hooking up with producer Nicky Ryan and lyricist Roma Ryan, with whom she recorded film and television scores. The result was a successful album of TV music for the BBC. Enya then recorded Watermark (1988), which featured her distinctive, flowing music and multi-overdubbed trancelike singing; the album sold four million copies worldwide. Watermark established Enya as an international star and launched a successful career that lasted well into the '90s.

　　Enya was born into a musical family. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, a popular Irish show band; her mother was an amateur musician.

　　Most importantly to Enya's career, was her siblings, who formed Clannad in 1976 with several of their uncles. Enya joined the band as a keyboardist in 1979, and contributed to several of the group's popular television soundtracks. In 1982, she left Clannad, claiming that she was uninterested in following the pop direction the group had begun to pursue. Within a few years, she was commissioned, along with producer/arranger Nicky Ryan and lyricist Roma Ryan, to provide the score for a BBC-TV series called The Celts. The soundtrack was released in 1986 as her eponymous solo album.

　　Enya didn't receive much notice, but Enya and the Ryans' second effort, Watermark, became a surprise hit upon its release in 1988. "Orinoco Flow," the first single, became a number one hit in Britain, helping the album eventually sell eight million copies worldwide. Enya spent the years following the success of Watermark rather quietly. She finally released Shepherd Moons, her follow-up to Watermark, in 1991. Shepherd Moons was even more successful than its predecessor, eventually selling over ten million copies worldwide; it entered the U.S. charts at number 17 and remained in the Top 200 for almost four years.

　　Again, Enya was slow to follow up on the success of Shepherd Moons, spending nearly four years working on her fourth album. The record, entitled Memory of Trees, was released in December of 1995. Memory of Trees entered the U.S. charts at number nine and sold over two million copies within its first year of release. 1997 saw the release of a greatest-hits collection, Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, which featured two new songs. Enya's first album of new material in five years, Day Without Rain, was released in late 2000.

http://edu.sina.com.cn/en/2005-07-08/173733829.html