younger sisters. Enya began her musical career in 1980, when

she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to perform solo. She gained

wider recognition for her music in the 1987 BBC series The Celts. Shortly afterwards,

her 1988 album Watermark propelled her to further international fame and she became

known for her distinctive sound, characterised by voice-layering, folk melodies, synthesised

backdrops and ethereal reverberations. She has performed in 10 languages.

Enya continued to enjoy steady success during the 1990s and 2000s; her 2000 album A Day

Without Rain sold 15 million copies, and became the top selling new age album of the 2000s

in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. She received the world's best-selling female

award at the World Music Awards in 2001. She is Ireland's best-selling solo musician. Her

record sales stand at more than 75 million worldwide, including over 26.5 million in

album sales in the US, making her one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

Her work has earned her four Grammy Awards and an Academy Award nomination.

Life and career 1961–83: Musical upbringing and Clannad

Enya was born and raised in Gweedore, County Donegal, in the northwest corner of Ireland.

She is part of an Irish-speaking, Catholic musical family, the sixth of nine children.

Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect

of the Irish language, her native tongue. Her grandparents were in a band that played

throughout Ireland, her father was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band before opening Leo's

Tavern, and her mother played in a dance band and later taught music at Pobalscoil Ghaoth

Dobhair. From a young age, Enya appeared in many pantomimes onstage at Gweedore's local

theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's Catholic Church,

Derrybeg. She attended Loreto Community School in Milford, County Donegal and then moved

away to attend college wanting to become a classical pianist, continuing her studies

in music and also studying watercolour painting. Enya has four brothers and four sisters, several

of whom formed the band An Clann As Dobhar in 1968. They renamed the band Clannad in

the 1970s. In 1980, Enya worked with Clannad, the band composed of her siblings Máire,

Pól, and Ciarán and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. Enya played the keyboard

and provided backing vocals on their album Crann Úll, although she was not officially

a member of the group until the 1981 release Fuaim, when she appeared on the cover. During

that same year, Enya was also a member of Ragairne, the band of Altan front-woman Mairéad

Ní Mhaonaigh. In 1982, shortly before Clannad became internationally renowned for "Theme

From Harry's Game", producer and manager Nicky Ryan left the group and Enya joined him to

start her own solo career. Enya then formed her own recording studio, named "Aigle", which

is French for "eagle". 1984–87: Career beginnings

Enya recorded two solo instrumental pieces called "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian" and "Miss Clare

Remembers" that were released on the 1984 album Touch Travel. She was first credited

as Enya for writing some of the music for the 1984 movie The Frog Prince, which was

released on a soundtrack album of the same title. Another early appearance on record

followed in 1987, where Enya provided spoken vocals in Irish on the song "Never Get Old"

on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album, The Lion and the Cobra.

Enya was contracted to provide music for the soundtrack of the 1987 BBC television documentary,

The Celts. The music she produced was featured on her first solo album, Enya, but it attracted

little attention at the time. The B-side single "Eclipse" is actually a reversed and modified

version of Enya's song "Deireadh An Tuath" from this 1987 album. The song "Boadicea",

also from this album, would be sampled and modified by The Fugees on their single "Ready

or Not", causing a brief stir because the group neither sought permission from Enya

nor gave her credit initially. Mario Winans' song "I Don't Wanna Know" sampled the Fugees

sample, and is officially credited to Winans, Diddy and Enya. The song became Enya's highest

charting US single, peaking at No.2 on the Hot 100 in 2004.

1988–91: International breakthrough, Watermark and Shepherd Moons

Enya achieved a breakthrough in her career in 1988 with the album Watermark, which featured

the hit song "Orinoco Flow". "Orinoco Flow", reported to be named after Orinoco Studios,

where it was conceived, topped the charts in the United Kingdom and peaked at number

2 in Germany. The Watermark album sold eleven million copies.

Enya was quoted as saying: "The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of

music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me." Enya also said in an

interview paraphrased, "Watermark has in its theme searching, longing, of reaching out

for an answer. The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey, which

is the way I would describe this album." The surprise success of Watermark actually

led to a delay in the completion of Enya's third single, Storms in Africa because she

was busy travelling the world to promote the album. Storms in Africa was re-recorded for

the single and the deadline was missed. Record company WEA used TV adverts to promote Storms

in Africa by reminding audiences of Enya's previous two hits.

Three years later she followed with another hit album, Shepherd Moons, which sold twelve

million copies and earned Enya her first Grammy Award. Shepherd Moons is also her longest

charting album to date, spending 238 weeks on the Billboard 200. The songs "On Your Shore"

and "Exile" and "Epona" were featured in the 1991 film L.A. Story. "Ebudæ" is also featured

on the soundtrack to the Robin Williams feature film Toys, while the 1990 feature film Green

Card features "River", "Watermark", and "Storms in Africa". "Book of Days" was featured prominently

in the movie Far and Away, with an English-lyric version created for the film then replacing

the old Irish language version on all pressings of the Shepherd Moons album from 1993 onwards.

In 1993, her recording of "Marble Halls" from Shepherd Moons was featured in the Martin

Scorsese film, The Age of Innocence. 1992–99: The Celts, The Memory of Trees,

and Paint the Sky with Stars In 1992, a re-mastered version of the Enya

album was released as The Celts including a longer, modified version of "Portrait",

which was renamed "Portrait". Four years after Shepherd Moons she released

The Memory of Trees, another Top Five success in both the UK and Germany, as well as her

first Top 10 album in the U.S. Singles released from the album were "Anywhere Is" and "On

My Way Home". In 1997, Enya released her greatest hits collection,

Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, again a top five smash in the UK and Germany,

which featured two new songs: "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If..."; "Only If..."

later became a single.. She was offered the chance to compose the score for James Cameron's

1997 feature film Titanic, but she declined. A 1989 recording of Enya singing "Oíche Chiúin",

an Irish language version of "Silent Night", has been reissued at least twice: on The Christmas

EP and the 1997 edition of the charity album A Very Special Christmas.

Ansett Australia extensively used "Storms in Africa" for promotional purposes when the

airline re-branded itself in the 1990s. The 1992 film Sleepwalkers features "Boadicea"

as the film's signature tune. "Boadicea" has also been sampled in the popular Fugees song

"Ready or Not". 2000–04: A Day Without Rain

Following a five-year break Enya released the album A Day Without Rain in 2000, featuring

37 minutes of new material. The album is Enya's most successful to date, peaking at number

two on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. The first single, "Only Time", was used in the film

Sweet November and received U.S. radio airplay in late 2000. In May 2001, NBC began using

"Only Time" to accompany commercials for their television series Friends, which helped the

song top the Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40 charts.

After the 11 September 2001 attacks "Only Time" was used as a soundtrack in many radio

and television reports about the attacks. Enya released a special edition of the song,

and a maxi single was issued on 20 November 2001 featuring a pop mix, with proceeds donated

to the families of victims. "Only Time" peaked at number 10 on the U.S. Hot 100, number 12

on the Pop Chart and hit number one on the Adult Contemporary and Hot Adult Contemporary

charts. In Germany, "Only Time" re-entered the German single charts at number 1 and the

album A Day Without Rain reached number one some weeks later. Enya won an Echo Award for

best selling international single in Germany of 2001, and received a nomination for best

selling album. In 2001, Enya recorded "May It Be", which

was featured in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, earning her an Academy

award nomination for Best Original Song. It was her second consecutive single to enter

the German charts at number one. The video features scenes from the Peter Jackson film.

Enya also performed the song "Aníron" – a song sung in Tolkien's Elvish language Sindarin

– for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

A new song called "Sumiregusa" was based on a Japanese poem by Roma Ryan. In September

2004, the song was used in Japan as part of an advertising campaign for Panasonic. Warner

Music Japan stated that Enya's next album was scheduled for release in Japan in mid-November.

Enya issued a press release on her official Web site on 19 September stating that this

was a mistake and no new album was immediately forthcoming.

2005–08: Amarantine and And Winter Came... In November 2005, a new album, entitled Amarantine,

was released. It reached the Top 10 in both the UK and the US, and peaked at number 3

in Germany. The album won the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for 2007, Enya's fourth.

In 2006, Enya released several Christmas-themed CDs with newly recorded material. On 10 October

2006 Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection was released containing six songs:

the previously released "Oíche Chiúin" and "Amid the Falling Snow", new recordings of

the standards "Adeste Fideles" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as well as two original

songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night". This CD was released only in

the United States in an exclusive partnership with the NBC television network and the Target

department store chain. Enya was awarded the World's Best-Selling Irish Act award at the

World Music Awards in London on 19 November 2006.

In late November two new editions of Amarantine were released. In the UK it was reissued as

Christmas Edition: Amarantine with a second disc containing the four new Christmas songs

previously issued on Sounds of the Season. The U.S. received a special version of this

release, which also included three postcards and a copy of Roma Ryan's book Water Shows

the Hidden Heart, which is referenced on the original album. Canadian fans could choose

from the Special Christmas Edition of Amarantine or an EP entitled Christmas Secrets, which

contained only the four new songs. By mid-2007, Enya claimed to have sold 80

million albums. An American businessperson has coined the phrase "enyanomics" to explain

Enya's ability to sell millions of records without giving any live performances. It is

defined as the inexplicable growth in sales of an artist in inverse relation to how much

publicity they have. On 29 June 2007, Enya received an honorary

doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Shortly after, on 10 July

2007, Enya received a second honorary doctorate from the University of Ulster.

November 2008 saw the release of And Winter Came… with a new video for the song "Trains

and Winter Rains". This album follows her passion for the Christmas period. It also

features guitar on the track "My! My! Time Flies!" and a chorale version of the previously

released "Oíche Chiúin". She promoted the album on morning news shows and performed

some songs live. 2009–present: The Very Best of Enya and

eighth studio album In March 2009, Warner Music Japan released

Enya's first 4 albums in a new format, called SHM-CD. On 23 November 2009 Enya released

a new album called The Very Best of Enya. It includes most of her hits from 1987 to

2008, as well as a new version of "Aníron", a song created for "The Lord of the Rings:

The Fellowship of the Ring" in 2001. In 2010, singer Rihanna sampled "One By One" on the

song "Fading" from her new album Loud. In a May 2011 interview, Enya's manager said

that she is working on a new album and will likely tour to support it, with part of the

recording taking place in Abbey Road Studios in London. As of June 2014, neither a new

studio album release nor a promotional tour has been announced.

Enya's single "Only Time" was used by Volvo Trucks for their commercial starring Jean-Claude

Van Damme, released in November 2013, in which the action film star executed the splits while

suspended between two trucks. Numerous parodies of the commercial appeared online in the weeks

following, again using "Only Time". Musical style and other projects

As a musical group Enya represents a partnership between three people: Enya herself, who composes

and performs the music; Nicky Ryan, who produces the albums; and Roma Ryan, who writes the

lyrics in various languages, except Irish, in which Enya will render the lyrics herself.

Enya performs all instruments, and vocals in her pieces unless specified. Although there

are certain pieces where acoustic instruments are featured, almost all sounds of her pieces

are created by a synthesiser. Her trademark sound is achieved by layering the voices of

Nicky Ryan, Roma Ryan, & herself many times. According to Enya, Angeles, the fifth track

on her album Shepherd Moons has about 500 layered vocal tracks.

Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. Her signature sound uses simple arrangements with extensive

multi-tracking vocals. The vocals are performed individually, and are then layered together

to form a virtual choir, although all the voices are performed by Enya herself, along

with Nicky & Roma Ryan. In "Cursum Perficio" of the album Watermark, Enya reaches a C an

octave below middle C. Later in the piece, she sings a high A-flat above the treble clef.

On the album Amarantine Enya sings in Japanese and Loxian, a language invented by Roma Ryan.

The vocabulary is formed by Enya singing the notes to which Roma provides the phonetic

writing. There is no official syntax for Loxian. While most of her songs are sung in English,

some of Enya's songs are sung entirely in Irish or Latin. Enya has also sung songs written

entirely or partially in Welsh, Spanish, French, and even languages created by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Enya has performed several songs relating to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings,

including 1991's "Lothlórien", and 2001's "May It Be", and "Aníron"—the latter two

appearing in Peter Jackson's movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and