Red long haired, white and freckled skin: also the Loreena McKennitt’s look proves her Irish roots. In 1830 her family moved from the green island to the Winnipeg prairies and Loreena was born in Morden (Manitoba) in 1957. Her father was a livestock trader and in her family she lived a rural farm-style life (nowadays she still live in a ranch, in Ontario). Since she was a child, Loreena heard the call of her original homeland: the magic of the Irish fairy-tales, the Shakespeare’s verses, the delicate sound of the Celtic harp, the instrument she used to compose her early songs. "It’s a visionary and versatile instrument", she told. "It sounds poetical. Its gentle sound can be rich and articulated. So you can move from soft tones to dramatic atmospheres. I studied Classical piano for ten years and Classical singing for five years. I practiced scales and arpeggios and I could use them playing with my harp".

The early years of her career were quite hard. Loreena used to play on the streets trying to sell her first musical tapes. "A useful experience, because it gave me a sense of independence and allowed me to know a lot of people who loved my music". In 1985 her debut album Elemental proved the elegance and the spirituality of her music. A music that updated the Irish traditional music with a modern taste, close to some new age experiments. Her limpid voice, in a ethereal register a la Enya, can sound even more ancient and evocative. This album was mainly a collection of traditional folk songs, but included also two unpublished tracks that showed the McKennitt's passion for metaphysical poets such as William Blake ("Lullaby") and William Butler Yeats (the solemn ode "Stolen Child"). The goal of her musical project was just clear: to transfer the Celtic folk atmospheres into the contemporary music, to upgrade the Alan Stivell Celtic harp’s sounds she used to hear when she was a child.

In her second album To Drive The Cold Winter Away, McKennitt played all the instruments and included other unpublished songs, such as the instrumental court-music of "Banquet Hall" and a song for only voice, "Stockford Carol". But her project became even more mature with the following Parallel Dreams, a visionary concept album that marked the beginning of her most creative period. Her litanies sometimes can seem monotone, but the tragic atmosphere of "Breaking The Silence" and the passionate crescendo of "Huron Beltane Fire Dance" showed a pure talent. McKennitt’s range of sounds improved too: besides the Anglo-Saxon folk, it reached the far boundaries of India and Far East. "For me it’s like an experiment of musical alchemy", Loreena explained. "Before composing, I use to read books, listen to documentaries, travel and talk to the people. At the end, I try to create my compositions, like in a painting. I’m interested in different cultures analogies. An Indian tabla can sound like a Irish Bodhran. You can discover that a tambour tone of the Indian music can be also expressed by a Celtic bagpipe. So I can replace the bagpipes with the tambours or vice versa, and I can mix the Eastern rhythms with Celtic samples".

The McKennitt’s musical search continued with The Visit (1992) in which she played harp, accordion and keyboards. This album is set in a magic world, lost in time and space. The beautiful, touching "Tango To Evora", the tender whisper of "The Old Ways", the madrigal "Cymbeline" introduce you to the album’s melancholic atmospheres, while "All Souls Night" is an epic ballad on a martial rhythm in which McKennitt’s voice sounds like a dark ghost as in the best songs of Nico. Despite a track like "The Lady Of Shalott" (a homage to Pentangle's folk-music) and a pair of "traditional", McKennitt try a personal way out of the Irish tradition path, experimenting a crossover with Russian folk too. "People think of Celts like a Irish or Scottish population, but many Celts tribes came from the Eastern Europe", she explained. "So ‘The Visit", the album’s title, is referred to the cultures that influenced the Celts history. I wanted to document these Oriental influences by using instruments like tamboura, sitar, udu drums and balalaika".

So in 1994, the Canadian songwriter released probably her masterpiece, The Mask And The Mirror. It’s a concept album inspired by the Medieval Spain, a crossroad of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. This album keeps the eclectic attitude of her previous works, but it is even more fascinating. You can find beautiful tracks like the fascinating "Santiago", the tender "Bonny Swans", the heavenly "Full Circle", the soft whisper of "The Dark Night Of The Soul", the dramatic singsong "Marrakesh Night Market" (with Arab percussion, accordion, balalaika and gypsy violin), the exotic litany "Mystic's Dream" (with keyboards, organ, tabla, bagpipes and choir) or the Renaissance-styled hymn "Prospero's Speech" (based on a Shakespeare’s text). The music is enriched by several instruments, mostly exotic, and by the electric keyboards. The tracks are a perfect fusion between Classical music, exotic sounds and pop. A memorable work indeed, that was born by a deep search, not only on music. "I was particularly interested in the 15th Century’s mystics such as San Giovanni Della Croce and Teresa d’Avila, but I found inspiration also in the love poems of that period", the Canadian songwriter told.

During a trip in Siberia, Loreena McKennitt composed Book Of Secrets, destined to become her best-seller (three millions of copies sold). It’s another demonstration of her charm and another voyage into the ethnical music. "Mummers' Dance" is a solemn hymn, "The Highwayman" is a dragging ballad, "La Serenissima" is a baroque serenade for harp, viola and violoncello. The Loreena’s music passes through Caucasus ("Night Ride Across The Caucasus") recalling the myth of "Marco Polo" (a singsong with no words with an arrangement of violin and tablas) and Dante ("Dante's Prayer", with a choir, violins and piano). McKennitt’s songs are set in an eternal time, recalling the memories of a deep and dark past. "I examined many past centuries and I guess they were good times, even though hard and uncomfortable", she told. "I like the style of life inside those communities, the fact that people lived in a very integrated way: you knew who the sellers were, you practiced your productions, and I think it’s easy to imagine it in a very romantic way. It’s seems like a return to a more human and understandable style of life. I love those cultures but I think those periods were very hard at the same time".

Also the Loreena’s private life was marked by very hard moments. Her boyfriend Ronald Rees, the brother of him, Richard Rees, and a friend of them, Greg Cook, died in a tragic accident on the Huron lake. After this tragedy, the Canadian songwriter decided to finance the Cook-Rees Fund For Water Search And Safety. She also assigned to this found the proceeds of Live In Paris And Toronto, a live album recorded with the Quinlan Road, the historical label of Stratford, Ontario. This album offers more than 100 minutes of music in 17 tracks, mixed in England at the Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Today the Canadian songwriter is working to her new studio record. But her musical project, made of ancient melodies and modern "world music", can be already considered a step forward in the story of the fusion between folk and rock.