March - April 2003

Dear Friends,

Welcome to our new web site. Hope you like the new artwork and layout. This has been an ongoing work in progress since June of last year, with most of the final stages completed this March.

Apart from web design, March was a highly creative month for us. Maybe the Irish tour inspired us!! Rolf went into a very serious writing period and penned 7 new songs, which hopefully you will hear on our next album. Speaking of which we are discussing plans for the next CD, and it seems we will aim for a 2004 release.

In April we travelled to the US, to New York, Washington, Chicago and LA. This was primarily a business trip to discuss future plans and issues for the US market. It also gave Fionnuala the opportunity to meet Ronnie Schiff and her wonderful staff at Fire House Studios in Pasadena. They are also responsible for producing the in-flight audio entertainment for United Airlines. Secret Garden’s music has been constantly featured on their soft sounds channel thanks to Ronnie and her team. Fionnuala recorded an extensive interview for this channel, which will be featured very soon. So if you are up in the skies with United check it out!

Meeting in New York, Fionnuala, Barry Matheson and David Bucksner

On returning from LA we had a quick turn around and flew to Japan. We were invited to Tokyo to take part in the opening of the new Roppongi Hills Centre. This is a whole new concept of living space, which incorporates living accommodation with theatres, cinemas, clubs, shopping and a beautiful out-door concert performance area. It was a great honour to be invited to open this beautiful arena, and we performed 2 concerts there. Apart from the concerts, we also had a 30 min. TV performance on national daytime TV, as well as other promotional activities. To coincide with our visit there, Universal Japan released our compilation CD “Dreamcatcher” with 2 bonus tracks, “The Promise” from the “Once In A Red Moon” album, and “Iairaikere” from the Japanese artist Sojiro featuring Fionnuala.

Concert Roppongi Hills	Tokyo TV interview Roppongi Hills	Mick O'Brien playing Pipes on Japanese TV

We had a great time in Japan and look forward to performing there again in June in the Orchard Hall in Tokyo on June 25th and 26th.

Since Japan, we are preparing for the Irish concert in the Helix in Dublin on May 31st, where we will also be premiering a new song by Rolf specially written for the choir and orchestra. We are also arranging an orchestral overture of Secret Garden music, which will be performed by the orchestra at the opening of the concert. So, busy times ahead with rehearsals, arranging, orchestrating and preparing.

All the best
Fionnuala and Rolf