Julie Feeney
Dramatic and stylish singer, composer, orchestrator, producer Julie Feeney, winner of the Choice Music Prize for ‘Irish Album of the Year' (Ireland’s equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize), combines her “mesmerizing stage presence and eccentric pop genius” (Hot Press) taking an avant-garde approach to her innovative, one-of-a-kind sound, which, while rooted in classical music, straddles both the pop and theatrical worlds.
After extensive touring, Julie is currently composing and recording her third album. She crowd-funded to make it and she smashed her target going to 115% after reaching 100% a week before the deadline. 204 people pledged. http://www.fundit.ie/project/funders/julie-feeney-next-album
In 2012 she performs 10 nights off Broadway in New York in April and she tours Ireland in November on a very novel tour to be announced. She will also in 2012 compose her first opera commission due for production in 2013/2014.
Hailed by The Washington Post as “The Emerald Isle's Original,” Feeney's music is widely broadcast on TV and radio and her sold-out performance at Ireland's National Concert Hall received a 10-minute standing ovation. The Observer gushed that Feeney's debut album, '13 songs,' was “the blossoming of a major talent,” adding that “Feeney towers over her contemporaries.” The NY Times has called her music “charming, urbane and dreamy” and The Guardian (UK) simply said “the world will listen.” She has performed many sold out shows in America, Ireland, England, France, Italy, Germany and Holland solo; with her own ensemble or with numerous orchestras for which she orchestrated and composed for.
She constructed a subtly complex masterpiece in her second album ‘pages', a genre-spanning symphony. After composing the record entirely on her own, Feeney then got to work recording the album by conducting an orchestra of clarinets, flutes, oboes, bassoons, trombones, French horns, trumpets, strings, sticks, harp and percussion from the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and then singing over what she just conducted – all in one six-hour session. A true perfectionist in the vein of Bobby McFerrin, Feeney’s supreme talent in composition and arrangement is matched only by her gorgeous, soaring voice. On her award-winning self-produced debut album she played most of the instruments herself.
The ‘pages' album artwork that she designed herself incorporated her unique hand-stitched ‘pages' dress sculpted from the actual pages of the album's orchestral score; and a tree house which she had painted in specific colours reflecting the tone of the album. Her award winning video for ‘Impossibly Beautiful' features 18 different head dresses designed by Piers Atkinson, and is one of 3 videos she made for ‘pages'. Julie puts on a stunning show that combining her songs with elements of theatre and performance art, wearing a head piece which represents her artwork in the form of a house.
After graduating from university, Julie performed as a professional choral singer world-wide and has extensive experience as an educator in Ireland and abroad. She has worked as a movement actor, a model and composer for contemporary dance projects. Julie is a true artist with immense vision.
