DFESA 1 - Celtic Woman

I think this group deserves to be the first post of this series because I was legitimately obsessed with them for at least six good months (though that was two years ago already). They're still some of my favorite singers now.

Brief Description:
Celtic Woman is a New Age/Celtic/Adult Contempary/Classical singing group made up of 4-6 members at any given point in time. They've had ten or eleven members total since their debut in 2005, though they started out with five. The music is usually either Celtic-with-a-modern-twist or modern-with-a-Celtic-twist. Usually. It's a little hard to define their genre. Some people don't like Celtic Woman because they're not Celtic enough. Basically, it's a few Irish women singing, one fiddler--and behind the scenes, an ultra-talented music director named David Downes.

What I like about this artist:
This Downes guy is a musical genius. He was the one who assembled Celtic Woman in the first place, and he's the guy who chooses all the new members when old ones leave. Because of this, not only are his arrangements absolutely beautiful, but he's familiar with all of the singers' voices and uses that knowledge to his advantage. Sometimes their voices blend so well in harmony that I can't distinguish them at all (which actually throws off a few people, but I like it a lot). Add to this the fact that the members are top-grade professionals when it comes to singing--or fiddling in the case of Máiréad--and you get some really good music. Also, they usually have an orchestra playing with them, and I love the full sound of an orchestra.
Plus, I'm a big fan of Celtic music, no matter how watered-down it might be. There's just something about the melodies that makes my heart ridiculously happy, and the lyrics tend to be about more than love-and-breakups. I mean, I'm fine with love-and-breakup content to an extent, but songs about yearning for home or nature or prolonged separation just interest me more. And the songs that are about love, they do hilarious things like refer to men as seaweed.

Some of my favorite songs:

Oh my. There are a lot. I will post four. 

 

The live recording of "The Sky and The Dawn and The Sun," which may be my absolute favorite song.  

I went to see them live. Máiréad actually plays like that. o.o

ACAPELLA.

And this one's a little more Irish-y. Yay for drinking songs! (I like their dresses.)

[ALSO, ALL OF THEM.]