Harem
Sarah Brightman
London Symphony Orchestra
Angel Records, 2003
1 CD
Catalogue #: 57477
EAN: 0724355747709
UPC: 724355747709
You save: 25%
Personnel: Sarah Brightman (vocals, keyboards); Adam Klemens, Adrian Partington (conductor); Peter Weihe (guitar, sitar); Jin Burda (mandolin); Lukas Hilbert (sitar); Nigel Kennedy (violin); Amir Abdel Magid (kanoun); Reda Bdir (nay); Michael Soltau (piano, keyboards, programming); Stephan Moccio (piano); Frank Peterson (keyboards, percussion, programming, background vocals); Matthias Meissner (keyboards); Trevor Barry (bass); Frosty Beedle (drums); Kuljid Bhamra (tabla); Rony Barrak (percussion); Christian Draude (programming); The Bach Choir, Jaz Coleman, Violet (background vocals); The Prague Symphony Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra.
Listening to HAREM, it's hard to believe that multifarious pop diva Sarah Brightman first came to fame as a proponent of musical theater (not counting her early stint with dance-pop group Hot Gossip). After going through a number of stylistic shifts over the years, she has arrived at an unusual point where her sound evokes a strange confluence of Charlotte Church, Enya, and Madonna. Given the "Arabian Nights" sub-theme of the album, you might even throw in a little "Desert Rose"-era Sting as well.
HAREM veers between ethereal, almost New Age-like moments, operatic flurries, percolating dance beats, and some accessible Eastern-flavored exoticism. Through it all, Brightman's Broadway past occasionally pops up, as on her orchestra-accompanied version of the standard "Stranger in Paradise," which is itself based on a classical theme. In fact, the orchestra pops up throughout the album, playing arrangements by former Killing Joke member Jaz Coleman, who's surely ventured as far afield from his origins by this point as Ms. Brightman.
Tracklist
Sarah Brightman
British siren Sarah Brightman started her musical career as a pure popster, singing dance music with the hit UK group Hot Gossip in the late '70s. Before long, though, her angelic voice and striking beauty led her to musical theater, and she starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit show CATS (she would eventually marry the composer). In due course, she found herself on Broadway in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Brightman had a number of hits with songs from various musicals in which she appeared, but by the '90s she was a full-fledged crossover star bridging the worlds of opera, showtunes, and pop with hit albums containing everything from Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" to Puccini's "Nessun Dorma."
