''An Ancient Muse'' is the seventh full-length studio album of the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

singer, songwriter, accordionist, harpist, and pianist,

Loreena McKennitt Loreena Isobel Irene McKennitt, (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences. McKennitt is known for her r ...

. It was released on November 20, 2006, internationally, and November 21, 2006, in the United States and Canada. It was her first studio album after a 9-year gap. It has sold over a half a million copies worldwide since its release.

Overview

Work on ''An Ancient Muse'' started in 2005. According to reports on McKennitt's Quinlan Road website, most of the inspiration for the tracks of the album came from the music of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

. Most of the tracks, with the exception of three revealed at the mid-September concerts in the

Alhambra The Alhambra (, ; ar, الْحَمْرَاء, Al-Ḥamrāʾ, , ) is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the ...

Granada Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...

in Spain, were completely unknown until the release. ''An Ancient Muse'' debuted on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200 at number 83, with about 19,000 copies sold in its first week. This was also its peak position on the chart.

Track listing

All music and lyrics written by Loreena McKennitt except as noted. # "Incantation" – 2:35 # "The Gates of Istanbul" – 6:59 # "Caravanserai" – 7:36 # "The English Ladye and the Knight" (lyrics by

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

) – 6:49 # "Kecharitomene" – 6:34 # "Penelope's Song" – 4:21 # "Sacred Shabbat" (

Kâtibim "Kâtibim" ("my clerk"), or "Üsküdar'a Gider İken" ("while going to Üsküdar") is a Turkish folk song about someone's clerk ('' kâtip'') as they travel to Üsküdar. The tune is a famous Istanbul türkü, which is spread beyond Turkey in ma ...

arr. Loreena McKennitt) – 3:59 # "Beneath a Phrygian Sky" – 9:32 # "Never-ending Road (Amhrán Duit)" – 5:54 ;Bonus tracks # " Raglan Road" – 6:12 – an unreleased track on a bonus disc exclusive to

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

# "Beneath a Phrygian Sky (Gordian version)" – 9:25 – exclusive

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

remix

Personnel

* Tal Bergman –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

(2, 3),

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

(5, 8) * Stuart Bruce – vocal

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

(1, 8), percussion (5) *

Clive Deamer Get the Blessing (previously known as the Blessing) are a jazz rock quartet based in Bristol, England. The band formed in 2000 when Jim Barr (bass guitar) and Clive Deamer (drums), who had played with Portishead, joined Jake McMurchie (saxopho ...

– drums (8) * Panos Dimitrakopoulos – kanoun (2, 3, 5, 7, 9) *

Nigel Eaton Nigel Eaton is a British multi-instrumentalist and composer best known for playing the hurdy-gurdy. Born in Lyndhurst, Eaton played the piano and cello before switching to the hurdy-gurdy in 1981 when his father, Christopher Eaton, began manufact ...

–

hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vio ...

(3, 5) * Ben Grossman – hurdy-gurdy (5) * Ed Hanley –

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

(5), udu drum (5) *

Jason Hann Jason Hann is an American percussionist and DJ. Career Hann is a member of a band called The String Cheese Incident. He is a former member of the band EOTO. He released a solo album in 2005 called ''Rhythmsphere Vol. 1 - Djembe Furia''. Hann al ...

– percussion (8) * Steáfán Hannigan – Turkish clarinet (1, 5, 8), vocal drone (1, 8),

uilleann pipes The uilleann pipes ( or , ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their ...

(8, 9) * Brian Hughes –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

(1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9),

guitar synthesizer A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical instrument systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities. Overview Today's guitar synths are direct descendants of 1970s devices from manufacturers (often in partner ...

(1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9), vocal drone (1, 8), oud (2, 3, 5), Celtic

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

(2, 3, 5, 8),

nylon string guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...

(5, 8, 9) *

Charlie Jones Charles, Charlie, Charley or Chuck Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Chuck Jones (1912–2002), American animator, director, and producer * Charles Jones (c. 1889–1942), American actor better known as Buck Jones * Charles Jones (pho ...

acoustic bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar a ...

(5, 6) *

Manu Katché Manu Katché (born 27 October 1958) is a French drummer and songwriter of Ivorian descent. He has worked extensively as a session musician, notably with Sting and Peter Gabriel, and his solo albums as a bandleader are largely in the jazz fusion ...

– drums (5) * Georgios Kontogiannis – Greek bouzouki (2, 3) *

Tim Landers Timothy Gerard Landers (born November 1, 1956) is an American bassist best known for his contribution to the 1970s-80s jazz-fusion genre and his work with Al Di Meola, Billy Cobham, and Gil Evans. Landers is a session musician and was a membe ...

– bass (2, 3, 8) *

Caroline Lavelle Caroline Lavelle is an English singer-songwriter and cellist who has created three solo albums and contributed vocals, music, and production help to many other artists and bands. Career Lavelle studied at the Royal College of Music in London. ...

–

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

(2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) * Rick Lazar – percussion (1, 5, 8) *

Annbjørg Lien Annbjørg Lien (born 15 October 1971) is a Norwegian musician, playing the hardingfele (Hardanger fiddle), violin, and nyckelharpa. Career She first came to national prominence in 1986. Shortly afterwards got a recording deal with the Heilo ...

–

nyckelharpa A nyckelharpa (, "keyed fiddle", or literally "key harp", plural ) is the national musical instrument of Sweden. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to cha ...

(6) *

Hugh Marsh Hugh Marsh (born June 5, 1955) is a violinist from Toronto, known for his electric violin sound. Marsh was nominated for a 2007 Juno Award in the best contemporary jazz album category. Early days Marsh was born in Montreal, Quebec and brought ...

–

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

(3, 5, 6) *

– vocals (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9),

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9),

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

(3),

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

(4), percussion (5),

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

(8) * Marco Migliari – vocal drone (1, 8) *

Donald Quan Donald Quan (born 1962) is a Canadian composer of film and world music, best known for writing the scores to television shows '' Relic Hunter'' and '' Mutant X''. Career Born in Toronto, Ontario, and schooled at the Berklee College of Music in ...

–

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

(1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9), vocal drone (1, 8) *

Hossam Ramzy Hossam Ramzy ( ar, حسام رمزي; 15 December 1953 – 10 September 2019) was an Egyptian percussionist and composer. He worked with English artists like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Siouxsie Sioux, as well as with Arabic music artists like R ...

– percussion (2, 5) * Sokratis Sinopoulos –

lyra Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was ...

(2, 3, 7, 8) *

Haig Yazdjian Haig Yazdjian is a Syrian-Greek composer, vocalist, Oud player, and producer. He was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1959. His parents are Armenians from Kayseri and Nevşehir in modern-day Turkey. For much of his life he has lived in Greece, which is wh ...

–

oud , image=File:oud2.jpg , image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921 , background= , classification= * String instruments *Necked bowl lutes , hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum , ...

(2, 3, 5, 6, 7) * Choristers of Westminster Abbey; Alex Pott, Elliot Thompson and Nicholas Morris – vocals (4)

Chart performance

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ancient Muse, An Loreena McKennitt albums 2006 albums