LISA GERRARD

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Lisa Gerrard with Klaus Schulze 2009
Background information
Birth name: Lisa Gerrard
Born: April 12, 1961 (1961-04-12) (age 49)
Origin: Melbourne, Australia
Genres: Neoclassical, New Age, Ethereal Wave, Gothic rock
Occupations: Singer , Musician, Composer
Instruments: Vocals, Yangqin, Accordion
Years active: 1981 - present
Associated acts: Dead Can Dance
Website Lisa Gerrard: http://www.lisagerrard.com/

Lisa Gerrard (born April 12, 1961) is an Australian musician, singer, and composer who rose to prominence as part of the music group Dead Can Dance with former music partner Brendan Perry.

Since her career began in 1981, she has been involved in a wide range of projects. Gerrard received a Golden Globe Award for the music score to the film Gladiator, on which she collaborated with Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt. In addition to singing, she is an instrumentalist for much of her work, most prolifically using the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer).



Early life
Born April 12, 1961 in Melbourne, Lisa Gerrard grew up in the then Greek-Turkish suburb of Prahran with her Irish immigrant parents. On her upbringing, she has said she grew up with "Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses," and that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works.

Career
Dead Can Dance
Main article: Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance originally formed as a quartet in 1981 in Melbourne, but in 1982 moved to London with members Brendan Perry, Lisa Gerrard, and bass player Paul Erikson. Shortly after coming to England, Erikson flew back to Australia, leaving the band as a duo. Dead Can Dance recorded eight albums on the 4AD Records recording label beginning with the 1984 LP, Dead Can Dance. The band split in 1998, but reunited in 2005 for a world tour.

Solo and collaborative career
In 1995 Gerrard recorded and released her first solo album The Mirror Pool. After the release of this album, she continued to work with Dead Can Dance, releasing their final album, Spiritchaser, in 1996. Following this, in 1998 she recorded Duality in collaboration with Pieter Bourke. This album would mark the beginning of an extensive collaboration together for a number of film scores, including The Insider and Ali. Gerrard began a new collaboration with Patrick Cassidy in 2004 with the release of Immortal Memory. Again, this collaboration was furthered in film work, including Salem's Lot.

In 2006, Sanctuary, a documentary about the life and work of Lisa Gerrard, was recorded and released in September 2006. It is the work of multi-skilled producer/director Clive Collier and features extensive interviews with Lisa Gerrard and various people who have collaborated and worked with her in the past including Michael Mann, Russell Crowe, Hans Zimmer, and Niki Caro. The documentary was released on DVD by Milan Entertainment on April 24, 2007.

In the same year, Lisa Gerrard released her second solo album The Silver Tree. This album was markedly different from her previous work and was also her first album released outside of 4AD Records. The album was first released on iTunes, with a wider physical release planned at a future date. The album was nominated for the Australian Music Prize for 2006. It is currently shortlisted as one out of nine of the best Australian albums. In 2007 a retrospective album The Best of Lisa Gerrard, a compilation of fifteen songs, was released covering her career in Dead Can Dance, solo work, and film work.

A world tour was undertaken in 2007 beginning in April in Melbourne, Australia. This tour marked the first time Lisa Gerrard had toured in Australia, with a performance in three cities. The tour was followed by performances in Europe and North America. More performances took place in Europe and Russia from October 30 to November 22, 2007.[2] In November 2007, Lisa Gerrard collaborated with German electronic musician Klaus Schulze on the double-album Farscape. The album was released July 27, 2008 and was followed by a European tour.

In 2009 Lisa Gerrard completed work on the documentary by Australian adventurer Tim Cope called On the Trail of Genghis Khan and contributed her voice to the soundtrack, which began airing in 2010, of the Japanese NHK taiga drama Ryōmaden, a story based on the life of Sakamoto Ryoma. Also in 2009, Lisa Gerrard created her own record label, Gerrard Records, which, aside from being a conduit for the release of Gerrard's future works will also act to promote and support unrecognised artists of all genres. In September 2009, Gerrard and Klaus Schulze performed another tour in six European cities - Warsaw, Berlin, Amsterdam, Essen, Paris, and Brussels. This tour coincided with the release of Come Quietly, a joint project between Gerrard and Schulze that was released during the tour.

Lisa Gerrard released her third solo album, The Black Opal in October 2009. The album included collaboration with Michael Edwards, Patrick Cassidy, Pieter Bourke, and James Orr and was the first release to come from Gerrard Records.

Vocal style
Lisa Gerrard has a contralto vocal range. Her vocals have been variously described as rich, jaw-dropping, deep, dark, mournful, and unique.Her range spans from contralto to mezzo-soprano on such songs as The Host of Seraphim, Elegy, and Space Weaver. On the other songs Sanvean and Sacrifice, Gerrard performs in the lower contralto range.

Gerrard sings many of her songs, such as Now We Are Free and Sanvean in an idioglossia (an idiosyncratic language) that she has developed since the age of twelve.
Film career
Lisa Gerrard's first experience in composing music for a film came with the 1989 Spanish film El Niño de la Luna, directed by Agustín Villaronga. The film score was composed by Dead Can Dance and the film featured Lisa Gerrard in her first acting role. El Niño de la Luna describes the story of David, a young orphan with special powers, escaping an institution with the help of a fellow institute inmate, Georgina, played by Lisa Gerrard.

Gerrard participated in a number of musical scores but came to fame as a film composer after recording The Insider in 1999, with Pieter Bourke, and Gladiator in 2000, with Hans Zimmer, which received an Academy Award nomination for best music score, although only Zimmer was nominated. Gerrard's score for the New Zealand independent film Whale Rider consisted entirely of solo material; a soundtrack album was released by 4AD.

In 2005 Gerrard collaborated with Ennio Morricone for Fateless followed by a collaboration with Jeff Rona on the song On an Ocean for the Henry Poole Is Here score. Gerrard along with Dead Can Dance also provided several contributions to the soundtrack of Baraka, a visual journey showcasing mankind's impact on our planet. Gerrard was also invited by Denez Prigent to collaborate with him on his piece "Gortoz a ran - J'attends" (meaning "I await"), a piece that was later used in the soundtrack of Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down.

In 2009 Lisa Gerrard wrote the score for Balibo, for which she won a Best Feature Film Score award at the 2009 APRA Screen Music Awards and an Aria Award for Best Original Soundtrack/Cast/Show Album at the 2009 Aria Awards.

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