恩雅用民歌旋律、合成效果背景与古典化的动机创造出了一种建立在民歌和凯尔特音乐基础上的新世纪音乐。低调的形象并不能阻止她的唱片销量的突进，今天，她已是世界上唱片销量最高的音乐家之一。
Enya takes a deep, cleansing breath before she speaks. It's the
end of a long, arduous day of preparation for the Nov. 21 release
of "A Day Without Rain" (Reprise/Warner Bros.), her first album
in five years, and she's admittedly feeling a little anxious.
"Only a small number of people have heard the music at this point,"
she says, unwinding in a suite in a Dublin hotel. "And no matter
how pleased you are with the finished recording, the first few
times you share it with anyone are somewhat nerve-racking. The
emotional stakes are extremely high when you create a piece of
work that is so personal."
The stakes are even higher when you're an artist whose work clearly
strikes a chord with your audience, which reaches far beyond the
standard artist/fan context. Enya's fans don't merely enjoy her
music; they take it to heart. Some even tend to use it as a catalyst
for changing their lives.
At the same time, though, the artist asserts that she does not
consciously strive to have an impact on the lives of her fans.
In approaching "A Day Without Rain," for example, she simply set
out to compose music that reflected her heart and perspective.
By revealing her innermost feelings, Enya believes, "people are
then inspired to empathize and interpret their own emotions into
the songs. They truly open their hearts."
And that's when those nerves start to seriously kick in -- especially
given the fact that Enya's been away from the public eye for quite
a while. Although a portion of the five years since 1995's masterful
"The Memory Of Trees" was spent assembling and promoting a greatest-hits
compilation (1997's "Paint The Sky With Stars"), the artist spent
the better part of the past two years ensconced in her Dublin
castle, painstakingly crafting the compositions that would eventually
evolve into the elegant "A Day Without Rain."
As usual, she collaborated exclusively with producer Nicky Ryan
and lyricist Roma Ryan, the pair with which she has created such
timeless recordings as 1991's "Shepherd Moons" and 1998's "Watermark,"
among several others. Collectively, Enya has sold 44 million albums
worldwide, according to Reprise. It's a figure that the artist
says "never enters into our consciousness in the studio. It becomes
completely irrelevant. For me, each album feels like the first.
The process of creation has never changed."
The process for "A Day Without Rain" started with the artist working
completely alone. "For a long period, I sit at the piano, and
I just let my thoughts and my emotions and my ideas flow freely,"
she says, noting that the next step is to introduce her instrumental
creations to Nicky and Roma Ryan. "I'm quite anxious at this point,
because it really is an act of laying your soul bare. The good
thing is that there's tremendous trust between the three of us.
We are always as gentle with each other as we are honest."
