August / September 2002

Dear friends

Summer has gone by and we are at the doorstep of a new season. Fionnuala and I have spent some time together discussing and planning, and we hope this fall will be a creative and productive one. We rounded off the spring season in June with an appearance in Oslo Spectrum hosted by the International Cancer Congress. The event brought people from all over the world to Norway and the guest list also included Queen Sonja of Norway. We performed "Dawn of a New Century" with The Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra and a big Choir marking the grand finale of the concert.

Fionnuala and Rolf performing at the International Cancer Congress held in Oslo in June. Photo - Torill Aas	"Dawn of a New Century" marked the grand finale of the International Cancer Congress. Photo - Torill Aas

Just before the summer break Secret Garden also performed in the Water festival to our home audience in Kristiansand. It was a concert we all enjoyed, especially since several of our players are home based there. Sometimes you wonder about the strange phenomena of playing for your own friends and family. You always look forward to it and it feels very important. But at the same time it's never easy, and no other time is the stage entered with more tension and nervousness. Never the less - the feeling after such a show is very rewarding, and it was also a nice way to say goodbye to the band before the holidays.

June performance at the Waterfestival in Kristiansand, Norway. (Photo: Arvid Fosseli)

Our four-week summer holiday in July did us all good, even if it's hard to stop and break up at the end of a season. Especially in a period presenting a new album you don't want to lose the creative momentum and lose the musical flow to the concerts. But at the same time its important with the rest - to at least try to put work-related routines and thoughts aside for a short while. We actually don't think this process is easy, but we acknowledge the importance and necessity of recharging and reflecting. Four weeks later we're ready and anxious to get started again, and I guess that's the proof of a successful holiday!

We started up fall season doing some radio interviews in Ireland - Fionnuala's home country. The interest for our latest album "Once in a red moon" has been very encouraging there, and the chart positions in the classical Lyric FM have continuously been strong. We entered some 17 weeks ago and the album is still holding in top ten. Now there are also talks about doing a concert tour in the Republic and in the North in the foreseeable future, something we would love to do!

We also started the work with reconstructing the web site before the summer. We've long wanted to clean up and improve it, and together with our great team of creative helpers - Jeff Wasserman, Bjørn Melbye and the fabulous artist Tone Aanderaa - we're now far into the process, hoping to re-launch shortly. Basically we wanted to make the page user-friendlier by improving the layout and adding more content. We've chosen to keep the artistic features created by Tone Aanderaa, as her style and our music seem to compliment each other in a special way. So the new layout will be familiar - with the same artistic quiet atmosphere. But it will hopefully be easier to use and will offer some more information and better content. Anyway - the web site, by the way it represents a direct contact with you all, is of high importance to us, and that's why it's worth taking the time to develop it and bring it to the next level. We will also concentrate hard the next months to finalize the orchestral scores, so they finally can be made available though our web shop.

Fionnuala discussing new layout with our Web Team - Jeff Wasserman and Bjørn Melbye (Tone Aanderaa not pictured). Photo: Rolf

We hope this fall will bring us back to Korea and China again for concerts. The plans have been floating a little bit for different reasons, but we feel confident that we'll be able to make the trip soon. There are also some more concert plans, but these dates will be published on our web site later.

Thanks again for your many inspiring letters. We do eventually get around to answering them all personally.
Please continue to keep in touch!

All the best!
Fionnuala & Rolf