BIOGRAPHY
(You can read the Story of Anúna Here)
In 1987, Dublin composer Michael McGlynn founded ANÚNA, Ireland's National Choir.
The name is derived from the Irish An Uaithne, a collective term for the three ancient types of Irish music Suantraí (lullaby), Geantraí (happy song) and Goltraí (lament). The music they perform is composed by Michael McGlynn and includes reconstructions of medieval song from Ireland and traditional arrangements. Usually ANÚNA perform live with twelve singers. The ensemble have sung on many of the greatest stages in the world including the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Gewandhaus (Leipzig), the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Shanghai Grand Theatre, Radio City Music Hall in New York, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, De Doelen Rotterdam and Minneapolis Symphony Hall. In February 2017 ANÚNA performed in collaboration with a full Noh theatrical company for the play Takahime, a Japanese adaptation of W.B. Yeats' At the Hawk's Well at Orchard Hall in Tokyo.
They have headlined at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and appeared at the World Sacred Music Festival in Fés, Morocco, three times. In December 2020 they featured with some of the world’s finest vocal ensembles as part of the VOCES8 Foundation “Live from London” series. ANÚNA have been signed to some of the world's major record labels including Decca, Atlantic, Gimell, Universal Classics, Polygram, E1 and Philips.
ANÚNA : Evocation (full-length feature)
Takahime ~ Complete Performance : Tokyo, 2017
In Ireland ANÚNA are known primarily for their seminal involvement in Riverdance from1994 to1996. The soundtrack album Riverdance the Show won a Grammy Award in ‘96. While curating the Meltdown Festival at London's South Bank, Elvis Costello invited ANÚNA to perform with him as featured guests at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and in 1998 their collaboration with Costello and The Chieftains The Long Journey Home was the title track of the Grammy Award-Winning album of the same name. In 2011 they featured on DVD and CD with the pioneering Australian entertainers The Wiggles.
In February 2018 the group won the Outstanding Ensemble category of the Annual Game Music Awards for their contributions to the soundtrack of the hugely successful video game Xenoblade Chronicles II (Square Enix) singing the music of Yasunori Mitsuda. In 2012 they appeared as the "Voices of Hell" on the video game Diablo 3 (Blizzard]) gaining a Game Audio Network Guild nomination for the Best Original Choral Performance in February 2013 and working with composer Russell Brower. The score was nominated for a BAFTA Award.
The unique nature of the group’s performance has resulted in the creation of a ground-breaking Education & Outreach programme that has been responsible for workshops across China, Iceland, Germany, the USA, Japan, Spain, Belgium, Israel, Sweden, Canada, Poland, the UK and a special Winter School held since 2019 in The Netherlands. The ANÚNA International Summer School was inaugurated in Dublin since 2011 and held there regularly until 2019. In 2022 the School transferred successfully to Italy (details HERE) and will continue and expand in Summer 2024.
ANÚNA has released eighteen albums since 1991. Invocation won a National Entertainment Award for classical music in 1994, while Deep Dead Blue was nominated for a Classical Brit Award in 1999. Celtic Origins (2007), also an award-winning PBS show and DVD and became the number one selling CD on the US World Music Charts while the album Christmas Memories, also a PBS TV special and DVD, reached the Hot 100 of the Billboard Album Chart in 2011. In November 2023 ANÚNA release Otherworld, a startlingly beautiful record that promises much for the future of the group.
Michael McGlynn's sheet music is available from www.michaelmcglynn.com.