Talk about the perfect oxymoron, Enya is as famous as she is reclusive. There is no other musician on the planet who has reached the heights reached by the Irish singer without ever selling out gigs – ever. Ireland’s first solo artist to sell over 75 million albums, Enya is an enigma.
The multi-award-winning singer beganparticipating in musical events and festivals from the age of three. She owes a lot to her parents, her extended family and her hugely musical upbringing.
Enya’s beginnings in Ireland
Enya was born in a predominantly Irish part of Ireland, on May 17, 1961, as Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (anglicized as Enya Patricia Brennan). His father and mother, Leo and Máire, both played in an Irish band called the Slieve Foy Band. While Leo also ran a tavern, Máire was a music teacher at Gweedore Community School, in Gweedore, a town where his maternal grandfather was the founder of the local theatre.
When she was 3 years old, Enya took part in a singing competition at the annual Feis Coecil music festival. She also did musicals at her grandfather’s theater and sang in her mother’s choir at St. Mary’s Church in Derryberg. She also started playing the piano and learning English at age four. At the age of eleven, his father sent him to boarding school at the strict convent. Here she developed a passion for classical music and art. She would eventually pursue her career in classical music for a year in college in hopes of becoming a piano teacher as she was never a fan of the stage.
After graduation, she joined her family’s group Clannad, at the invitation of the group’s manager, Nicky Ryan. She played on keyboard for the band and was a backup vocalist. Two albums later, Nicky began noticing her independent musical streak. This led to Enya, Nicky and his wife Roma leaving the Clannad in 1982 to help build the singer’s solo career. They raised money to build a recording studio, Aigle Studio.
Music career and private life
Enya’s first solo performance was in 1983, at the National Stadium in Dublin for a musical show called RTE. Folk Festival. At the time, Enya was still very nervous about public appearances and almost didn’t take the stage. In 1984, two of Enya’s piano instrumentals were included in an artist collection album under a label called Touch.
Her portfolio continued to grow as she wrote nine tracks for the 1984 romantic comedy The Frog Prince. The film’s soundtrack – where she was first credited to Enya – was released the following year under Island Visual Arts. She then wrote the entire soundtrack for the BBC2 documentary series The Celts. This was released in the UK in 1987 by BBC Records (and Atlantic Records in the US) as part of his first solo album titled Enya. The album was relatively successful, reaching No. 69 on the UK Albums Chart. She also received a $3 million settlement after threatening to take legal action against The Fugeesto sample her celibacy without permission and without giving her credit.
The album’s success led her to sign a £75,000 deal with Warner Music UK. The label gave him artistic freedom, with minimal interference and no set deadlines. His first album under the label, Filigrane, was released in 1988 to unprecedented success. It peaked at number 5 on the UK charts and No. 25 on the Billboard 200 in the US. This pressured her for her second album, Shepherd’s Moons, which was an even bigger hit than Watermark, hitting #1 in the UK and #17 in the US. She won her first Grammy for her efforts on Shepherd Moons in the category of Best New Age Albums.
In the years leading up to 1997, the music icon released a few more chart-topping albums. These include The Memory of Trees and her first compilation album, Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya. Also during this period, Enya was offered a contract to write the soundtrack for the 1997 film Titanic – she turned down the offer.
The Irish singer’s 2000 album, A Day Without Rain, is her best-selling album. Her success was largely buoyed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, her debut single Only Time, was widely used by a plethora of television and radio coverage for the disaster. She donated the proceeds from the single’s success to the International Association of Firefighters.
The same year, she wrote and recorded two songs on the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In 2002, she performed her single Can It Be With An Orchestra at the 74th Academy Awards, where it won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Enya has since released three more solo albums: Amarantine (2005); And Winter Came (2008); and Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya has traveled the world through her career promoting her albums. During these travels, she sang live and with vocal synchronization at conferences and musical performances. However, she never did a concert tour for any of her albums – ever. Not even when fans around the world wanted it. According to her producer, Nicky Ryan, in 1996 she turned down a flat fee of almost £500,000 for a single concert in Japan.
The singer explained that the extra hours spent working on recording his albums in the studio leaves him with little or no time to think about another project. She also mentioned that her reluctance stemmed from the difficulty of recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage.
Enya has also performed for international figures such as Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in December 1995 and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at his birthday party in April 1996.
In 1997, the successful musician rewarded herself with a gigantic £2.5million castle located in Killiney, County Dublin, Ireland. She spent more than £250,000 improving security at the castle in 2005, after two men broke in, attacked one of her maids and stole valuables from her.
Who is Enya’s husband?
Nicky Ryan and his wife, Roma Ryan have worked very exclusively with Enya since the beginning of her career in the 80s. Enya explains how she finds inspiration and encouragement there. However, it seems their love life hasn’t been erased by Enya.
The singer said in an interview that falling madly in love and getting married would be the most horrible thing that ever happened to him. She never considered it a priority and probably never will. It seems that Enya’s private lifestyle is incompatible with love and romance. As a result, the singer remains single and is happy about it.
What she has closest to a female figure are Nicky and the two girls from Roma, of whom she is the surrogate aunt.
What about his net worth
In 1997, the successful musician rewarded herself with a gigantic £2.5million castle located in Killiney, County Dublin, Ireland. She spent around £250,000 improving the castle’s security in 2005 after two men broke in, attacked one of her servants and stole valuables from her.
Prior to the release of his 2015 Album Dark Sky, the singer had sold millions of albums worldwide.
The Sunday Times has released its annual rich list of Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland . On the list, Enya was the richest singer on the list. She is also the richest solo artist of all time in the Irish world. According to Celebrity World, Enya’s net worth is $140 million.
One wonders how rich she would have been had she included touring in her career portfolio.
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