Musical Favourites: Celtic Woman

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, no doubt you’ll have come across Celtic Woman before. After all, they have to feature at least twice in every single one of my favourite Christmas music-posts. Fun fact, though: I love Celtic Woman for way more than just their Christmas albums. And here’s a small overview!

Constantly changing

Celtic Woman is one of those groups that is constantly changing. Originally started as a quintet, with four vocalists and one fiddler, it’s since shrunk down to just 3 musicians, and gone all the way back up to 6 or (I think) even 7.

When their first album appeared in 2005, the youngest member was only 16 years old. By now, there have been no less than 15 different members, and the group has been touring the world (well, mainly the USA, but still) just about non-stop. There’s been guest stars, temporary replacements, and many – many – goodbyes.

With the changing line-ups, come favourite and less-so-favourite artists. While my all time-favourite members of the group tend to vary from time to time, a steady absolute favourite has been Eabha McMahon. Honestly, it’s probably been her since the moment she joined the group. After all, just listen to that voice! How could you not instantly fall in love with it?

Another steady favourite has been Maev Ni Mhaolchatta. Her soprano is just so clear, that it always kind of makes me feel as if I’m listening to some sort of out-of-space being singing when she hits those high notes.

That actually brings me to another thing I love about Celtic Woman: exactly because the group has been around for so long, you get to see how some of the singers have changed and evolved, both in their style and in their singing. To go back to Maev, she left the group in 2008, but came back for a couple of guest appearances in the Destiny-era. If you just look at the way she has changed as a singer, even after already having been trained for so many years before the first ever CD? That’s the type of thing I enjoy singing.

A final thing – in a way Celtic Woman is like pizza. (Yes, I promise you – this makes sense ànd is going somewhere). Even when it’s bad (*cough* the entire Believe-album *cough*) or you don’t really remember too much about it (like the entire Lullaby-album, which basically passed me by completely)? It’s still pretty good.

Take, for example, this song featuring Chloe Agnew. Now, while I can certainly respect her, her singing style has never really spoken to me that much. In this song, though? Celtic Woman manages to bring out all the best things I do like about her voice!

And that’s that for me gushing about Celtic Woman – did you know this group already? If so, do you enjoy their music style? Be sure to let me know below! (and it’s fine if you don’t 😉 )

-Saar