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As I have blogged about Norway, I would love to introduce a Norwegian singer in this post.

She has a beautiful voice…
Best described as a combination of Enya and Sarah Brightman,
Sissel Kyrkjebø, a singer from Bergen, Norway entertains the world with her charming, yet mysterious songs.
She is versatile, being able to sing in various genres from classical soprano to New Age.

One of her famous works in Asia is Summer Snow, a theme song of a Japanese drama with the same title.
She is also known for singing in the movie “Titanic”.

Sissel’s musical style runs the gamut from pop recordings and folk songs to classical vocals. Her work on the soundtrack to Titanic has led to comparisons with Irish singer Enya.

Sissel’s combined solo record sales (not including soundtracks and other albums to which she contributed) amount to over 9 million albums sold, most of them in Norway—a country with only 4.5 million people.

Fall 1988, Sissel moved to Oslo for a short period to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the Norwegian version of The Sound of Music. This production set box office records and was seen by over 110,000 people.

Sissel recorded the audio dub of the character Ariel for the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish versions of the 1989 Disney movie The Little Mermaid.

In 1989, she released her third album, Soria Moria, and met the man whose wife she would become, the Danish comedian and singer Eddie Skoller, to whom she became engaged to in Christmas 1991 and married on 21 August 1993. Sissel has two young daughters Ingrid and Sarah with Skoller, whom she divorced in 2004.

February 1994 Sissel performed during the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer.

In 1997 Sissel toured the USA with the Irish group The Chieftains. They appeared, among other places, on The Late Show with David Letterman and in Carnegie Hall. Later that summer Sissel was involved in recording the soundtrack to the film Titanic, which reached #1 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 24 million copies worldwide.

Sissel had a #1 hit across Europe in 1998 with Prince Igor, a duet with American rapper Warren G on the concept album The Rapsody Overture, which combined American rappers with European opera singers. Sissel sang an aria from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor during the chorus, while Warren G rapped.

In 1999, she sang the Gaelic song Siuil A Run on The Chieftains’ 1999 album Tears of Stone.

November 2000 Sissel released (in Norway only) her solo album, All Good Things, which was her first solo album in nearly seven years. In 2001, Sissel released All Good Things throughout Europe and Asia.

Sissel sang a duet with the Danish goth rockers Sort Sol on the track Elias Rising. This song appears on the Sort Sol album, Snakecharmer, released in May, 2001.

October 1st, 2002 Sissel released her first album in the USA, which sold over 100,000 copies in its first 3 months of release with almost no advertisement or marketing. The album sold better than Decca record execs expected.

In late 2002, one of Sissel’s concerts was filmed at the Oslo Spectrum and later broadcast in March 2003 on PBS in the United States; it was subsequently released as the DVD Sissel in Concert.

In December of 2002, Sissel was invited to represent Norway at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Here she sang Somewhere over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, and a duet with Josh Groban. They sang The Prayer.[1]

Sissel released her second USA album My Heart, in March 2004, a classical crossover album, which also included two pop songs written by Richard Marx and one ballad Wait A While written by Jon Lord of Deep Purple.

Summer and Fall 2004, Sissel went on tour with The Lord of the Rings Symphony Tour. Sissel was a featured soloist on an orchestral performance dedicated to the music from the The Lord of the Rings films.

May 2005, Sissel performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City, Utah on their radio and TV broadcast Music and the Spoken Word, which is featured on nearly 2,000 stations across the USA and around the world.

In October 2005, it was announced that Sissel would be knighted by the King of Norway to the position of Knight of the 1st Class in the Order of St. Olav for her contributions to music and as an ambassador for Norway. February 2006, Sissel officially received her knighthood and the medal that goes with it.

In December 2006, Sissel joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir again for their annual Christmas concerts as the featured soloist. In four performances, she sang for more than 80,000 people in the 21,000-seat Conference Center in Salt Lake City. The concerts were videotaped for PBS television, and will be aired in December 2007.

source : Wikipedia