The following is an original production of WTCI.

When we played, it was a dream come true for me to play in Carnegie Hall.

And I suppose the night we played there and my husband and all my family were there.

And you're standing on that stage and you're playing your harp in Carnegie Hall and the ghosts in the wall, I suppose.

I said, Jeepers, this is the real deal.

Learn more about this former Celtic woman's journey to superstardom As I sit down with Irish harpist and singing sensation Orla Fallon.

Coming up on the A-list in September of 2004, Orla Fallon stepped on stage at the Helix in Dublin, Ireland, with four women she had met only days before in front of a sold out audience.

The group performed what they thought was a one time concert to be aired on PBS the following year.

What they could not have anticipated was the immense success that Celtic woman would achieve, and with it the opportunity to introduce the world to the music and culture of Ireland.

Orlas four years as a member of Celtic woman took her across the United States and around the world, from the Vatican to the White House and beyond, and now recording and touring as a solo artist.

Her future holds endless possibilities Orlas rise to stardom seems straight out of a fairy tale.

But growing up in a small village in Ireland, she developed a passion for music that would carry her to unthinkable heights.

Well, Orla welcome to the A-list.

We are so excited to have you.

Thank you so much.

It's great to be here.

So tell me about growing up in Ireland.

What was your childhood like?

Well, I had a real you know, I was mad into reading and ponies and music.

Those are the three things that I all that was all I wanted in life.

I grew up in a small little village called Knocking out in County Wicklow, in the Wicklow Mountains.

And it's a tiny little place like the school where I went to school.

My mother, there were two teachers in the school, one of them of which was my mother.

Oh, gosh.

And it was a great place to grow up because it was very rural.

And I'm the eldest of five, but it's like two separate families.

There's myself, my sister Eve and my brother Tom, and then there's two younger ones who are years younger than us.

But the three elder lemons, as I call us, we were mad into ponies and being outdoors, we were just really innocent wild kids.

You know, we thought we were Huckleberry Finn.

We used to build a dam on the river every summer and we had a raft and we up and down the river and raced ponies in the fields and music.

It was a lovely, innocent country childhood.

And I think sometimes I feel sorry for kids today because their lives are so sophisticated.

They've got all these games and you know, they have to be entertained all the time.

When we were kids growing up, it's very simple, but we entertained ourselves and had a ball.

And I have lovely, lovely memories of that time.

Now, did your siblings sing as well?

No, but my brother has a great voice, but he'll only sing after he has a few drinks.

So because I was picture the sound of Music.

So now, now that image is totally wrong.

You know.

I don't know where they got me because I'm the only one that's really I have this love and love and a passion for music.

And the rest of them, they like us, but they wouldn't have anything like the passion that I have now.

And I drive them crazy because they're always saying, Would you stop singing?

So when did you first know that singing was a passion?

Well, it sounds like a bit of a cliche, but I never remember a time when I didn't sing.

I think it's, you know, from the time I was tiny, I can remember sitting in the back of my parent's car singing away in the car.

And I was very lucky in that my parents, they knew that I had a voice and and that I loved it.

And they really nurtured, you know, and gave me a love.

Like my mother's deeply passionate about the Gaelic language and Irish folklore and stories.

And her mother in turn was the same.

So growing up, I was just swamped in stories and songs and I learned loads of songs at home and was encouraged to sing at everything in the village.

So I sang in church, I sang in the concerts, and it was brilliant.

And so, you know, whatever we were passionate about, we were all encouraged.

Like my brother was a great footballer, so he was encouraged to do that and it was never pressure, you know, But it was just, just do what you love and do to the best of your ability.

And I've heard that your grandmother was a huge influence on your life influence.

You know, my mother came from Kerry, my father's from the Wicklow Mountains, my mother's from Kerry, and as I said, was a teacher, and that's how she met my dad.

But her mother and father, we used to go down to Kerry every summer and spend weeks down there.

And we loved going down to visit them.

And they were hugely influential in that.

Like Nan we used to call, my grandmother was deeply passionate about the music and the stories and the songs, and we so many of the songs that I sing today, she taught them to me.

And every time I sing, I think of her, you know, she passed away itll be almost 20 years now.

But, you know, she used to say when she'd hear a lively song, I got a fits of dance listening to that.

Or then she'd cry.

She'd openly weep, you know, with some really plaintive songs.

And I suppose she gave me that passion because Nan was very passionate and she was a very strong, great, great woman, you know, And she was a huge, huge influence on me.

Now I'm fascinated by the harp only because to me it seems like the most counterintuitive instrument to play that.

I mean, there's these strings, but you're not playing like this or this and yeah, and it's just gorgeous.

How how did that become your instrument of choice?

Well, back to my parents again.

There were great people in that.

As I said, I grew up in this small little village and there weren't too many harps around Knockananna, and they worked incredibly hard to give us the best education that they could.

And so we all went to boarding school.

So I went to this fantastic boarding school in Dublin when I was just barely 12.

And it had a brilliant music tradition.

And that was very important to my parents that they sent us to schools, you know, that would nurture our talents.

So, Mansafel, I always say my life would have been very different had I not gone there because had I not gone to Mansafel, I wouldn't have learned the harp.

I heard, you know, I saw all the girls playing the harp and I heard these tunes and there was this amazing nun, Sister Eugene McCabe, who taught Harp there.

And I just really wanted to learn this.

And I was just, you know, we'd have, the harps would be playing at Mass and you could have six or seven, maybe ten harps playing.

So when you're a little kids listening to this and the choir was fantastic and it was a great, you know, even still to this day.

And it's a long time since I left school, but myself, my sister, Eva, we often talk about the different concerts and celebrations and masses and different things that we had in Mansafel and it was there that I got my great love for the harp.

Yeah.

Well, it's one thing to be passionate about something.

It's another to pursue it as a serious career.

When did you know, or maybe since you were able to sing as a child that this wasn't just something that you wanted to do as as a joy, as part of your life, but something you wanted to really pursue?

Well, you know, when I was growing up, I as I said earlier, my parents were kind of into the old academia, you know, to to do the best that you could at school.

And my parents always said, you have to get your degree to have a day job, you know, because there was this yearning to do the music.

But, you know, you have to have a good firm background behind you because it might not work out.

So I actually thought initially I wanted to be a lawyer, so I studied law for a year, but I would have been the most chaotic.

Could you imagine the singing lawyer?

So I actually went and did a music and theology degree.

So I taught for six years.

So I was teaching, but I was trying to balance the teaching with the gigs and the concerts and whatnot.

So eventually I took the plunge and gave up the permanent pensionable job and it was scary.

You know, I missed my check at the end of every month initially starting.

But, you know, I believe that life is short and that you should carpe the old diem, as they say, and grasp every opportunity and never have any regrets.

So I'm delighted that I because the music business is a wild and wonderful business and it's a hard business, you know, it's not easy.

The the singing part is the easiest part of it, but the business side of it is hard.

But touch wood so far, so good.

I've met some folks who say that I'm a dreamer, and I've no doubt there's truth.

In what they see.

Orlas leap of faith into a full time music career was certainly a risk, But following her passion eventually afforded her the opportunity of a lifetime.

After a performance at the national concert Hall in Dublin, Orla was approached by renowned Irish oboist David Agnew, who had been enchanted by her voice and asked her for a demo.

Little did she know at the time that this chance encounter would lead to a phone call that would change her life.

So people probably know you best as being a member of Celtic Woman.

When what was that like when you were first approached to join to join that group?

Well, it was gas.

I was sitting at home in my music room one day and playing a few tunes and I just totally out of the blue got this call from David Downes.

And before that, a few years before that, I had been singing in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, and Chloe's dad, who's a great oboist, he was in the audience and he said to me after the hearing, I love your singing, I loved your harping.

I only wish I had heard more of it.

Do you have a demo?

I gave him the demo and he said, Oh, there's this really talented guy called David, and you know, you have to meet him.

He's the next big quick, the next big thing, the next.

Bill Whelan, who was responsible for Riverdance.

So he sent the demo to David, and David said, Oh, it's very haunting.

I love the sound of your voice, but I never heard anything from him again for two years.

And then totally out of the blue, I got a call.

He said, We're thinking of putting together a show, you know, and thinking of calling a Celtic woman.

And it's going to be filmed for PBS television.

I nearly leapt down the phone.

Then when I heard PBS, because I'd heard, you know, I knew every every Irish performer, you know, knows and really looks up to PBS's television.

And because it's done so much wonderful work for so many artists.

So he asked, Would you be interested?

I said, Oh, yes, I'm trying to stay cool and calm.

But I didn't hear another thing.

And I said it to my husband at the time, said, Don't say that, because it probably won't happen because, you know, the way you get a lot there are a lot of disappointments in the music business because you never know until you sign on the dotted line, if something will really happen and sure enough, a few months later he said it is going ahead and I suppose the rest is history.

Yeah.

So what was that?

That like the first time that the women were all together and you were starting to plan for what would become this amazing, almost iconic, you know, group?

Well, we didn't know at the time, you see, because we filmed the show in the Helix for what we thought was a one off special for PBS.

And we got together.

We met like two days beforehand and he was like really mad because the dresses were finished at 12:00, I think the night before.

And we're mad learning music.

And, you know, we had these they got us these amazing Dolce and Gabbana shoes I remember for the night.

And but there were ramps all over the states.

So we were trying to sing and remember what to do and then not keel over in the shoes.

But we all really clicked on the night and there was something very special on the night.

And, you know, it just really went really well.

The audience loved us.

I remember my family were blown away by it because they kept saying to me, What, what, what is this show?

And I said, Oh, no, no.

Youll be very pleasantly surprised when you come to see it.

And sure, we went on tour, then it exploded on PBS and I stayed with the group for four years.

I've traveled predominantly all over the States, but I've been to Japan about four times.

Europe and South Africa had an amazing experience.

You know, I learned so much from I met so many incredible people and I have so many, many lovely memories from my time There.

When did you realize, though, when you were still with Celtic Woman that this was more than just, you know, a one night, one night performance?

This was something that I mean, you have a pretty dedicated group of followers.

Oh, and the fans are oh, they're amazing.

They're the most incredible people, you know, And they're so loyal because even when I left the group, they followed me as a solo artist.

And they come, as I say, from the highways and byways to concerts.

And oh, they're just amazing.

I'd like to know when do we realize when it was special?

I dont know, because we came out on tour pretty quickly after, because the show was filmed in September and this summer we came out for a four week tour.

But then it just the demand and the venues started getting bigger.

The crowds started to get bigger, and I suppose when we played, it was a dream come true for me to play in Carnegie Hall.

And I suppose the night we played there and my husband and all my family were there and you're standing on that stage and you're playing your harp and Carnegie Hall and the ghosts and the wall, I suppose.

I said, Jeepers, this is the real deal.

Yet do you think he took David took a chance on this?

It's kind of like and I don't mean to offend, but the Irish Spice Girls, you know, take this.

What people used to call us.

Well, and taking kind of very different personalities, all very strong and talented.

But it's kind of a risk to put you all together.

I know what it was.

But my husband said when they started, he said, Oh my God, how are they going to handle five women?

It's hard enough to handle one.

So and everybody was so, so different and our personalities were so different.

He did take a chance and putting five completely different styles of singing, you know, we're so different.

Like I'm from a very traditional background.

Lisa was very musical theater.

Chloe was like the young Disney kid that stuck.

She was only 13 when she started and Mave then was very classical, so we were all so different.

Our personalities couldn't be more different, but it worked and there were no auditions.

You see, I think if you had tried too hard to do it, it wouldn't have worked.

But it just happened in such an organic way.

And I think that was why it was so lovely.

Yeah.

When I'm down and oh my soul So weary when Troubles Come.

And my heart burdened be.

During Orlas tenure in Celtic Woman, the group sold over 4 million CDs and DVDs and achieved a record breaking 95 weeks at the top of the Billboard World Music chart.

They performed for the Pope in his own private chapel at Carnegie Hall and for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush.

But in 2009 Orla made the decision to leave the acclaim of Celtic Woman behind and start fresh as a solo artist.

How hard was that transition from being part of that group to going off on your own?

Well, it was very scary, you know, because I could still be an Celtic woman if I had wanted to stay, you know?

And it's very scary and daunting to walk away from something that's hugely successful, to go off on your own.

But there were two reasons that I left.

One was because I really wanted to try new things and be a solo artist.

But the other reason was the tours for me were getting too long and Celtic Woman, there was such a huge demand there, but you were on the road tour.

Could be 25 weeks on the trot and for me at the end it just got too much.

And I said like, I love my music, but I have to have a balance because I love my husband and love my home life.

So it's important to get the balance right.

So now, you know, it was it's hard as a solo artist because you have to start from scratch again.

So, you know, you're walking away from all of this acclaim, what not to really start again.

And but I love the challenge of my father used to I would say, you're very plucky.

And I, I keep at things and I'm very tenacious and I don't give up.

And so now I'm delighted with the balance that I have in my life, because that's very important for me.

What about the control over your music?

What song choices?

You know, that's important to me as well.

Yeah, I work with a great team of people.

Danny Young is the president of the company Elevation, who looks after me and we get on really well.

You know, it's a it's a great working relationship because we fight and we we call a spade a spade, as I say, but I'm very well looked after and it's great to work with somebody like that.

And it's very important, like Dan Shay, who does all my arrangements and who's the musical producer of all my stuff, he's just a dream to work with because he is like, I was talking to Denis Rosenblat, who was the director of my two shows, and he said that and I've never met anybody to have your back more than Dan Shay has.

And it's so nice because Dan would go through hell and high water for you, do you know what I mean?

He's just so dedicated and that he gets sounds out of my voice that I never dreamed possible.

And I trust him so much in the studio.

And because when I started working with him, Danny suggested Dan and I said, Oh, I don't know, because he had worked with Mariah Carey, J-Lo and Celine Dion, who are very different in style to me.

And I said, I want to really get this whole Irish Celtic thing.

And my goodness, he knows more nearly about Irish music than I do.

He's just brilliant.

So it's great to work with, you know, people like that and and it's great to have the input and I can bring songs to him and he brings songs to me, so it's great.

Have you ever besides the Christmas album, which I want to talk about, but have you ever gotten out of that comfort zone and considered not singing that the Irish music?

Oh yeah.

It's a dream of mine to do a full country album.

Really.

I'd love to do a country, album.

Like one of my favorite singers of all time is Alison Krauss.

So, gosh, I just love to do a song with her someday.

But yeah, well, Distant Shore, I did kind of push the boundaries.

My first solo album since Celtic Woman, and there's a few songs on it that are quite country.

I did a Coldplay song, I did Fix You Sing It, and I always, you know, sing of my own style, but I'm trying new things.

It's really important for me to do that.

But someday I'd love to do a full country album.

Yeah, not really.

Mad.

Mad country.

Not, but just.

Yeah, just nice chill out country album, yeah.

Is there one song that no matter where you go, whether you're in a pub at home or you know, and a huge concert hall is the one song that you always have to sing.

Well, My party piece the song, if I'm asked to sing a song and it's on my new CD now My Land, funnily enough, it's not an Irish song.

It's both sides now.

It's Joni Mitchell's, Both sides now.

I just adore the song and I sang it the day I graduated from college, The day I got married, I sing about my 21st birthday, everything.

It's like my song.

And to get the chance to to have performed it in Kilmainham.

And for when we were filming this new show, My Land, and do the arrangement that Dan did on this is just a Dream come True.

And I love singing.

From all sides.

Now I'm give and take Still somehow this loves illusions I recall.

I really don't know love at all Whose idea was it to do the Christmas concert and CD.

It was Dannys, actually.

Yeah.

Good old Danny and yeah, it was.

We had had a ball.

We filmed in Nashville and I absolutely I fallen in love with Nashville because that's where I do most of my recordings.

That's now.

How did you pick Nashville, of all places, Through Dan Shay.

Okay, it's funny.

All the different people.

But yeah, he knows about an awful lot of musicians there and it reminds me of Ireland in some ways because it's just so warm, like I've met the most incredibly talented people.

They're so humble, so down to earth, you know?

And somebody said to me once, Billie, the engineer that we work with, who is amazing is that, Oh, you can never have an ego here.

All, all, you know, because it's just they knock it out of you.

And I love that, you know, and I love, you know, Billy's I was teaching me all these great Southern saying.

Yeah, I was going to say, you have a pretty good Southern twangs.

You Want to?

You know, and all this, it's brilliant.

I just love it.

And so we filmed the show in Nashville, did a lot of the album there, and the fans came from all over the country.

The theater was packed and had an absolute ball.

And then I got to do the song with Vince Gill as well.

Who can you just say?

The Doors music opens up to you and people you meet like, I've loved Vince since Tiny and to get the chance to go to his house and record a song with him and I was blown away by his harmonies.

And then afterwards he was showing us all his guitars.

He's Chet Atkins guitar, and I was like, Oh my Lord.

So it was brilliant.

Yeah.

And you just pinch yourself.

And it is, Yeah.

I hope maybe someday I'll get to do another old song with Vince.

How important has PBS been to your career?

Oh, hugely important.

You know, I always say that they're the ones who made the dream come true because, you know, growing up at home, I always just yearned to come to America because America's like the place that you have to go.

And I remember somebody said to me, years go, there's a big stage waiting for you in America.

And it was thanks to PBS, the st through Celtic Woman like we were brought into the homes and hearts of people all over America.

And the same now as a solo artist.

And I would be eternally grateful to them.

And I think they do phenomenal work, like at home in Ireland.

We grew up, we all loved Sesame Street and all my friend's kids and their kids are watching Sesame Street.

You know, it's it's terrific.

And what they do here for culture and for the arts, for education, it's phenomenal.

And long, long may it continue.

Because I came down to Dublin, see the film, been made.

We've seen a scene.

With the Spanish lady watching movies by candlelight.

I saw that she.

Only two years into her journey as a solo artist, Orla has already had two PBS specials, released three full length albums, and performed with the likes of Grammy Award winner Vince Gill and American Idol's David Archuleta.

Her incredible talent has enabled her to perform for millions of people around the world.

But through all of the acclaim or love remains humble and appreciative of the opportunities she has been given, never forgetting the impressions left by her grandmother to always follow her passion and love.

I am afraid.

So.

You've done Carnegie Hall.

You've sang for the Pope, for presidents in the White House.

I can't imagine what might be left on your list of places that are a part of your journey.

Id love to sing for Obama now, I'd love to go back again.

Yes.

Yeah, I'd love to.

But yeah, it's important to keep wanting to do it.

Sure, there's loads of people I'd love to sing with them.

Loads of things I'd love to do.

And I think the day you stop dreaming is the day you just give up.

So what would you tell an aspiring singer and aspiring musician of like, the best way?

Besides hard work and just trying and trying?

Yeah.

What based on your advice, I mean, based on your experience, what advice would you give?

Well, I think the most important thing is to build up your confidence, you know, because getting out there on stage, it takes you know, I remember the first time I sang at the talent show because I used to sing in church all the time.

And then I sang in a talent competition.

I remember playing the harp, and went like this, like, Oh, this.

I was so scared, you know?

And it takes a while because you learn your craft, Do you know what I mean?

And you build up that confidence.

And I, where as now I'd live and die on the stage, you know?

But even although even when I was a kid, my parents used to bring me to sing every Sunday to these two guys who play guitars and stuff.

Darian, Joe and I nearly killed the other kids to get up on stage, you know?

But when you're a teenager, you go.

Your confidence, I think, gets a bit shaky.

And so just keep doing as much as you can, getting out there singing in front of people and and just be true to yourself and and have confidence.

Don't let because there will alw I got knocked, oh jeepers, so many times as well but you just keep going and I think if the louder a door slams, the more determined you are to make another one open.

So.

So what is next for you?

Well, I'd be touring quite a bit, you know, over the next few months.

And and hopefully I'll get the chance to to you know, the special is going out all over PBS and so I can keep making music and playing a concert.

I love doing the live performances.

You know, it's for me, it's so humbling.

The amount of people I've met and the stories they've told me about how the music has affected them and what it has meant to them in their lives.

And sure, that's just amazing for any artist, because when I started playing the harp Sister Eugenia used to say, Oh love.

Now, if you managed to touch one person with your music, you've done your job well.

And the amount of people that I have been blessed enough to meet who said that the music has made a difference in their life, that's what makes it all worthwhile.

So hopefully I can keep doing that.

Well, on that note, I think our audience is just going to be amazed and thrilled that you were in Tennessee and that you have a deep love for Nashville.

And I just I just love the South.

I think there's something amazing about the Southern people.

It can't be the old Southern welcome and the southern southern hospitality.

Can you say y'all for it?

Y'all see, y'all.

Thanks for being with us Orla.

Thank you.

Pleasure.

See