April - May 1999

Hi everybody. We are at home now for a few days, recovering after a hectic around the world promo trip. The beginning of April was spent in Shanghai followed by Guangzhou for the first time, and then onto Hong Kong. As always our Chinese friends treated us so well, and we had a good time - even with the hard work. After Hong Kong we had an opportunity to return to Norway and perform in Rolf's hometown Kristiansand as well as promote the release of "Dawn of a New Century" which was great. Then we gathered up the band for rehearsals, and flew to the US for our first concert tour there.

The concerts were a great experience for us. We played Washington DC, Minneapolis, Boston, Denver and Salt Lake City - all cities we visited in March / April to support the PBS on our new concert documentary. All great concert halls and fantastic audiences. It's such and inspiration to perform our concerts. The band is really such an important part of it - great players - great friends. They even had a great time specially since the roller blading craze took off with them, and before every concert it was possible to see Bjørn Ole, Per and Henrik whiz past on their new and shiny blades!! Henrik had a tumble in Denver and experienced "E.R" for real in the local Denver hospital where they stitched him back together again.

After the shows we also meet the audiences who want to have their CD's and videos signed. It's amazing to meet people face to face, and so many of them talk about their personal experiences with the music. Even if we are exhausted after a concert, that is a very important part of it for us which we truly appreciate.

One woman in Denver could tell us that she had played "Hymn to Hope" for the high school students on the tragic day of the shooting at the Columbine High School. When you are confronted with stories like that you simply feel very humble. Two women in Boston told us that they'd been using Secret Garden music in their work with autistic children. A young girl had responded to the music - the first sign of communication in years. There are so many inspiring stories, and we are just very thankful that people are sharing them with us.

After the concerts the band flew back to Norway and we continued up to Toronto for more promo. It was great to visit Canada again, and only wish we could have spent more time there. Hopefully we'll be able to do some concerts in Canada coinciding with the September / October tour in America.

At the moment we are working on the plans for a new concert tour in the States in September/October. It could include as many as 40 concerts with our full ensemble. Details will be announced on our web site soon.

We are on the road again from the 23rd of May, starting with promotion in Spain for the new album. May 29, 30 and 31st, we travel to Korea to perform 4 concerts in Soul and Pusan. Information will be on our web site. From Korea we are doing some more Asian promotion. We covered Taiwan, China, Korea and Hong Kong in March / April, but this trip will take us to Singapore and Malaysia which are new territories for us. So we look forward to meet Secret Garden friends there.

In June we'll be over in the States again, taking part in the PBS programs in 15 cities around the country. What cities and stations will soon be publicized on our web site. At the end of June we'll be travelling to South America to visit Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil and Argentina for promotion work on our new album "Dawn of a New Century" A fantastic opportunity to see a part of the world where we haven't been before.

So many people have kindly written to us, and the mail is being answered these days. Thank you so much. A lot of you have also written to our guest book on our web site. We truly thank you for that. It's so nice to have all the great feedback, and we treasure each and every one of them. Keep on writing.

Since the next tour will take us into mid-July, we won't be able to write the next journal before the summer. Until then - look for information on concerts dates, promo-dates and PBS dates.

All the best
Fionnuala and Rolf