Name: Loreena McKennitt

Birthplace: Morden, Manitoba

Birthdate: February 17, 1957

Pets: Two Dogs (Julius - labrador/bouvier cross and Percival - a dalmation)

Contact Info:

Quinlan Road
PO Box 933
Stratford, Ontario
N5A 7M3
Telephone: 519 273 4491
Fax: 519 273 1948

or


Quinlan Road UK
2nd Floor, 1 Heathgate Place
75/87 Agincourt Road
London NW3 2NT
Telephone: 0171 267 0093
Fax: 0171 267 9488

You can email her at: postmaster@quinlanroad.com. This is not Loreena's personal email address but your message will be forwarded to her.

Musical History:

In 1985 she produced her first album, Elemental under her own label Quinlan Road (named after a road in her hometown of Stratford, Ontario). Once produced, she marketed the album by mail-order out of her home, at concerts, while busking in places such as Toronto's St. Lawrence Market, and by dropping off copies to be sold at places patronized by the kind of people who might like her music -- record stores, book stores, cafes, and such like. Keeping a mailing list of people who were interested in her music allowed Loreena to keep her audience in touch with her activities without having to resort to more formal and more expensive means of publicity that were out of her reach at the time.

Much of Loreena's following at this time was developed by word of mouth, and this worked so well for her that by 1990 she had been able to sell over 100,000 copies of her albums through her own independent efforts. The success of Elemental allowed her to finance her next two albums, To Drive The Cold Winter Away(1987) and Parallel Dreams (1989), both self-produced, as all her albums have proven to be.

The next big step forward for Loreena was the Canadian release of The Visit in the fall of 1991. The Visit would win the 1992 Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of the Grammies) for the Best Roots and Traditional Album.

The release of the mask and mirror in 1994 made an immediate impact in Canada, debuting at #7 in the charts, and has received a lot of recognition in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere with worldwide sales of well over one million. At the 1995 Juno Awards, the mask and mirror was awarded the Juno for Best Roots and Traditional Album.

Loreena's most recent album The Book of Secrets was released at the end of September 1997.

*Credit is given to Loreena McKennitt's Musical Artistry FAQ as a major source of information for this section.*