March 1999

Kicked off the tour with a game of curling in Oslo with most of the band. Curling is the game that became popular in the Nagano olympics due to weather disruptions on all other sports. It’s really great fun and we discovered that we have a natural born talented player in our oboist Henrik.

After a private performance in Oslo we left for Nashville on March 9 and spent 4 wonderful days there with our freinds at Hi5 putting final touches to the editing of the PBS and also editing a 90 minute home version which will go on sale in May. It was our first visit to Nashville and we loved it.

Then on to Salt Lake, Denver, Minneapolis, Boston and Washington, D.C. to support the first broadcasts of our PBS programme, which was very well received and great for us to have the opportunity to also appear live on TV for the first time in the US.

From Washington we flew to Hongkong and had a day off to recover which we really needed.

From Hongkong we flew to Taiwan and spent 3 days in Taipei and 2 in Taichung. This was our first visit to Taiwan and we had a great welcome there, it was also fun to kick off the first promo tour of our new CD. We covered press, radio and TV, and the Polygram Universal staff were terrific. It's also nice to see that in Asia a lot of our true fans are young teenagers with a great understanding of our music.

From Taiwan we went to Seoul and back to our dear friends at Polygram/Universal for a very intensive
6 day promotion trip which also covered TV, radio and press. Apart from working we got a chance to visit a traditional Korean music and dance performance, and we found it very beautiful and inspiring. On our last day Rolf got the opportunity to play golf with 3 Korean friends, which he really enjoyed. The golf bug is really setting into Secret Garden now as we are all trying to learn to catch up on Rolf!!!

So far the new CD is really doing great in these countries and it's amazing for us how much especially Korean people relate to the deeper emotional songs as they have chosen "In Our Tears" as their promo single which is also our favorite song.

From Korea we have now arrived in Shanghai where we will spend the next few days before moving to Guangzhou for the first time. In our program in Shanghai we're invited to do masterclasses in violin and composition at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, and we will get a chance to meet with the great Chinese composer Prof. He Jian Hao, who composed the beautiful "The Butterfly Lovers Concerto".

April will find us covering promo in China and Hongkong and then back to Norway for the release there and then on to the States for the first leg of our concert tour. More details of that can be found in the tour details page.

We will keep you informed during the rest of our travels and we hope that you will enjoy our new CD.

Take care,
Love from Rolf and Fionnuala