By Danielle Laurin
Translated by Skydancer

With her long red hair and her crystalline voice, the Canadian singer has the air of a fairy going out to tell a Medieval tale. But attention, she is also a redoubtable woman of affairs!

It is the month of May, it is one o'clock. You wait in front of a five-star hotel with Howard, a representative of the Warner Brothers Record company. You wait for Loreena McKennitt.

The ethereal harpist has the fingers of a fairy and a crystalline voice gave a concert this evening at the Place of The Arts, after bringing a tour to twenty-five cities in Europe. Tomorrow, she will visit New York, and after, Los Angeles, the Vancouver. Next, the International fast-seller will return to her grounds in Stratford, Ontario to relax and chill out.

You have an hour-long interview with her. In this hour, she treat you to an extraordinary privilege. First, we evaluate the advantages of this media coverage and on her tour, which is almost finished. We have dithered without fine insisting sometimes on the requirements of an artist, sometimes on her employment of at times, a big work load. We feel, in any case, that Loreena McKennitt is not of a genre that makes herself dictate what she is and who she is.

It is 1:12 when you see her leaving in a taxi, in a long chestnut skirt. Her flamboyant tignasse turns red, framing her milk-hued skin and red lips. She shakes herself in the tourbillion of her graceful arms.

She quickly grabs the hand of her small, fine suitcase. Concerned, she oversees the trunk of her car while an assistant piles up the luggage on the sidewalk. A representative of Warner smiles politely at the journalist. The magnetism of the Sphinx, in a flash, she has you hypnotized.

But her clear blue eyes already see elsewhere. Hounded by the young assistant, his arms overloaded, she goes into the hotel and nimbly directs herself towards the counter. You hear the discussion with a proposing details of her stay. Her voice is soft, clear, and put, but close.

With a cell phone on his ear, Howard invites you to climb inside the artist's luxurious suite. In the elevator, he warns you: "At two, you must leave. Loreena had waited for a television." He adds, "You have a chance, she did yet accept two media recognitions. You and the television."

At 1:22, the star installs herself three marrowy cushions of medium size after and crashes. Her young assistant serves her tea and walks on the tips of his toes. His eyes fastened on her watch. Howard makes the "crane foot" in the corner of the room. There is absolute silence. One would believe they were in a monastery.

Caressing a stray strand of her fiery hair, Loreena smiles for you. There, she is ready and very with you. Finally, almost. Something is obviously on her mind. What?

"A close friend had a horrible accident on the road two days ago. He is half of my fate." She explains to you that she has spent the two nights by his bedside to comfort him. "It is a miracle that he is still alive. But he is strong and he is out of danger right now." She hesitates. You feel it to be feverish. The young assistant feels the agony, and looks compassionate. "I have to take my responsibility, so it's okay!" Loreena then laughs, in the relaxing atmosphere, and next: "It is a very good manner, in any case, to remember your priorities in life."

Exactly. What are the priorities of Loreena McKennitt? "Having the time for myself, taking the time with my family and my friends, making useful in your community... all are very important to me." Sigh. "I don't want to wait to long. I need to imply myself more, do more activities that allow me to be a more balanced person. I need to get myself involved. I am occupied with environmental and architectural questions. I also believe it is necessary to defend female victims of domestic abuse. One of the problems in our generation is that some are very centered on themselves, and caught up in their problems, their desires, and what's on their agenda that they are neglect the bigger problems in society."

At forty, Loreena McKennitt is not married and does not have any children. "You don't find that there enough children on earth?" She laughs at herself, then concludes: "I do not think what my personal life is made out to be on the internet.

She cannot say as much of her public life. Winning a Juno award and a Billboard International Achievement Award, she has maintained her career since 1985 with seven albums of traditional music, folk, pop, and new age. With her Celtic style, Loreena McKennitt is a star.

The general opinion, with "The Book of Secrets" released in September in the fall of 1997, the star has attained summits. "Those who think perfection does not exist are not listening to are never listening to Loreena McKennitt.", was written in a Texas journal, "The Austin Chronicle." Austin is a big advertiser of music in the United States.

"The Book of Secrets" topped the Billboard world music charts, like both of its predecessors. In addition, Loreena has sold four million albums in forty countries.

Sure thing without question, she has taken the advantage of these new professional engagements: Next year will be her time to do what she wants. "I feel like I have no spare time. I need to take a break right now since I have constructed my career brick by brick since 1885."

Born in a small Manitoban town with people of many origins: Irish, Icelanders, Germans, Loreena McKennitt grew up in an environment of traditional music. Her father was a livestock dealer, and her mother was a nurse, and had two children. The intermarriage of cultures was daily bread. There were lots of parties, festivals, where she danced and stunned herself.

In 1970, Loreena moved to Winnipeg and to study to be a veterinarian, when she discovered she has a passion for the Celtic music she heard of a folk club. In 1982, she traveled to Ireland to trace her ancestry, and research her roots. That year, she began to play the harp. She had already mastered the piano and accordion.

Next, in 1985, she took the career of an actress and within five or six years, she was already composing for Stratford's prestigious "Shakespearian Festival." She fell on the book by Diane Sward Rapaport, "How to Make and Sell Your Own Recordings." She borrowed $10,000 from her family and released her first album, "Elemental," and sang traditional love songs as well as Celtic and Folk ballads. She created her own record label, Quinlan Road, and sold fifty exemplary albums and busked in the street. She was twenty-seven years old.

Today, Loreena McKennitt employs a dozen people at a time, at other times, a half-dozen. She has an office in Stratford for her business, and also in London, not including her connections with Los Angeles and Italy. There was not yet an impression that her success has placed her above the norm. “Lots of artists place their trust on their agent. But you must know that it is a key component for a good business. I am never under the impression that I am dependent on others.”

Her only compromise: a contract with began with her album “The Visit,” in 1991 with Warner Music, who can oversee her international sales. Warner occupies the sales of her albums, she has a licensing deal for the creation and the promotion.

“I wanted an ideal career which implies lots of diversification. Myself, how I am equipped, our occupations and ourselves, our correspondence, and the sales of the concerts… I organize and administer my own tours in the least details. I occupy myself with salaries and sales of each tour and reserve tour busses. I’ve also see that my press file are published in different languages… If Warner discontinues this deal now, the whole remainder of the tour would still continue.”

And the creation in all of this?

“It is a big compromise to make. I prefer having complete control over what I do and I assure myself that my work is in good hands and are selling well. I would say that I take sixty percent of my time for my career and forty percent to manage all of it. It is more rewarding to create less and assure yourself that your work is treated how you value it rather than risk that potential dependence on a company or an agent to do it right.”

Loreena McKennitt does not see any contradiction in her affairs in the music industry or her career.

“People think you that you are this or that. Not both at one time. This is one thing that fascinating thing that I have learned. It is what each one has so many abilities, but never believes it. We can be creative as much as we can be practical.”

Is Loreena McKennitt a perfectionist?

“If you see my desk or my car, my God, no I am not a perfectionist. I just simply do not currently demand much from the music industry. Those are part of my values and priorities. For example, usually on tour we sleep in five star hotels and in a personal motel on the roadside. Well me, I take care of all of them. If I go to a five-star hotel, I am accompanied by twenty-five people. There is a service that treats you to massages and they accompany us on tour. It is a commitment I make and that I decide. The result of this philosophy is a work environment and it feels very good.”

We discreetly hit the door. One server puts on gloves and brings a silver plate. The young assistant murmurs and so does Howard. Loreena turns towards us and says “Not right now. I have to eat after the interview.” She continues to her normal activities. “The problem, in general, is the standards of the music industry are very low and you bring your positive attitude to do your daily affairs. It is taxing, and you are like a perfectionist. But if I were a true perfectionist, I would not have taken public action in my work. To convince myself, I say to myself ‘What is the matter with these documents of the industry and I don’t wait for it to be perfect.’”

The musician has worked for three years on “The Book of Secrets” at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, England. She first criss crossed the styles Greece, Turkey, Italy, and Siberia and researched the traces of Celtic influence. She has nourished herself with the adventures of the celebrity Marco Polo and the explorations of Jean Moschos, a monk of sixth century Sicily. She has researched the “Divine Comedy” of Dante, as well as the specialties and philosophies of the Sufis, and the Islamic doctrine. But Loreena McKennitt refuses to compare her journey to a mystic quest.

“The word quest is used a lot, by all kinds of people. No, my research is not a quest. I have an intense curiosity of matters in life and in the world. I have a fascination and my profound respects for mysticism and exploring the forces of nature. But my energy is the emotion.”

It is 1:55. Howard approaches us slowly. The diva is not faltered. “I am very emotional. The emotion is for me a highly intense environment that passes through. Sometimes it is a little too intense… You don’t have to see the color of my hair!”

Her laugh is generous and fills the space. Howard also laughs... then coughs softly. He gives you an apologetic face: two minutes. Loreena finds her words of closure. "The Sufis believe it is necessary to polish the mirror of their soul..." Silence. Will she stop here? Where does she want to go? You keep wondering about the source of her inspiration.

"I liked to be a better person..." Yes, but again? "They have contributed to this emotional force that is inside of me, and an excessive passion animates me in all that I do. This is a knife that slices twice, but it is the intensity that expresses itself in my work, and that is how people respond when they listen to my music. It is what makes my successes."

The young assistant walks to the right and chills out while Howard intervenes: "Good, good... you may go now."

Two-o-five. In front of the five-star hotel, you wait for a taxi, with a head full of questions again. You are taken by this one: what is locked inside the "Book of Secrets" of Loreena McKennitt?

It is eight o'clock and it is dusty. You're finally inside the hall, Wilfrid-Pelletier Place of the Arts, which is completely flanked with people. The artistic interior of brilliant medieval lanterns, the flamboyant red skirt, emerges, the spirit is heavy and loud. The harpist's "fairy fingers", and her ethereal first words. Her voice is crystal-clear, makes its way through the archways of the hall. Three-thousand fans sing along in their heads. The life is not anywhere else, but here, in reality. This is ecstasy.

After remembering three repetitive ovations, Loreena McKennitt disappears, and unlocks her mystery. She is polite in the mirror of your soul.