Post by davidhr on Jan 18, 2011 12:01:12 GMT -5
Far from staying home, Lara went far from home this past week, as another step occurred in Lara’s re-focusing on the wider, non-French speaking world.
The rumors about Lara going to China came true perhaps quicker than anybody expected, further emphasizing that 2011 will be a year of new horizons for her. She participated in the Spring Festival in Beijing, performing two songs. She had to sing ‘I Will Love Again’, as it won in the voting by Chinese participants over ‘Broken Vow’, and despite her reported disdain for that song, the snippets we heard from the video report of the festival sounded as if she did it well, If Lara ventures into the wide world with English language songs this coming year, she better get used to it, because it will be her most obvious introduction in many countries. She also performed a duet with the Chinese singer Shang Wenjie of ‘J’y croire encore’, snippets of which again sounded quite good. Videos of Lara’s being introduced and the news item showing these fragments are available on youtube and larafabiannews.com (the latter site and larafabianweb.com have some nice pictures of the event). It would be great to see the full songs, although it’s not clear (to me) whether people are able to film from the audience at this festival. However, it is supposed to be shown on TV there, so perhaps that offers another opportunity to record it.
Laetitita on larafabianweb.com says that it is her understanding that Lara’s appearance in China is due to the desire to release Mlle. Zhivago in Asia Minor. Meanwhile, in neighboring Russia, Mlle. Zhivago sales stayed strong, with Lara at #5 on the Russian chart (down from #4) – she’s now been in the top five for 8 straight weeks. In the little blurb underneath the listing for the album, it says that 2011 will be the year for the release of this album in Europe. Lara has said Italy and Germany are next – perhaps there will then be appearances in those countries to support it (and she will get further chances to sing ‘I Will Love Again’ ☺ ).
In this air of greater outreach, additional rumors of future projects abound. The website greatsong.net has the following comment (in translation): “In addition a collaboration with Steven Spielberg is expected. The director asked her to put her voice on a soundtrack. Both artists are preparing to release a film and musical project together.” One project that Spielberg apparently has been considering is a film on the Bee Gees; in addition Lara herself apparently indicated Spielberg might be working with Alan Badoev on a small film in the Ukraine. After seeing Lara in China, one guesses that anything is possible!
Back in France, the ‘best of’ is now down to 15th in the list of compilations, and 90th overall on the charts (a drop of 24 places). It is #4 in Belgium, a gain of 3 places. At the same time, the stand-alone DVD of ‘TLFM font leur show’ has entered the charts in 17th place. It was also reported that Lara was willing to participate in the French version of ‘Dancing with the Stars’, but apparently, for whatever reason, she isn’t going to be doing it. The very idea was an anathema to some fans – "would Celine lower herself to something like that?" - while others felt that Lara is a good dancer and they’d like to see it. Actually it fits with Lara’s approach of doing what she feels would be interesting, regardless of whether people think it’s good for her career or not.
As noted in her separate post, Noa (a fan) reported that in December, there was a news item in Israel that Lara is going to start work on a new (presumably French) album with the Israeli Giora Linenberg. This probably refers to the rumored album thought of as ‘Le Secret’ that Lara had previously said is ready – maybe she meant that figuratively. As we know, last week’s rumor said Lara was already working on a new English album with Igor Krutoi, with the fragment of the song “Always” representing a part of it. The two items are not necessarily incompatible if they are aimed at different markets, but the time to do each one of them justice makes the simultaneous development of two completely new projects somewhat unfeasible (as compared to the ‘best of’ and Mlle. Zhivago, only one of which was really new). In addition, we’ve seen the difficulty Lara has had promoting two projects at once in different countries; would she really be willing to do that again?
Lara’s work with the charity AMTM is getting some publicity on Laetitia’s website. You may remember that Lara showed up for a photo exhibit dedicated to the charity on November 28th last year. On the URL,
www.larafabianweb.com/?page=expophotosamtm_eng
Laetitia has a chronicle of the event, some pictures, and further information about projects Lara has planned in the future, including an auction of clothing used in her performances. She even is reported to be planning to go on a mission to Nepal (to aid the children of India and Nepal) with an A.M.T.M. team when her schedule allows during 2011. We’ll see if that really happens, as such things have often failed to materialize previously.
Continuing on with the biography of Lara, here are some interesting points from pp. 16-20
** Lara’s father was above all a big country music fan, and he had Lara listen especially to Olivia Newton John and John Denver (whose song ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ was the first one he taught her, and we’ve seen them play portions of it together several different times). [Note that neither of these particular artists is really 'down-home' country.]
**Lara’s mother, on the other hand, was a big fan of Nana Mouskouri, and her music was played most of all. Lara got as a present the complete, seventy-two (!) vinyl record set for her to go through. The first record she ever got, from her father, was “Je m’envole” by Nicole Rieu.
**In addition to going to the Catholic elementary school at Saint Ursle in Uccle, after class Lara attended the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where she studied singing, dance, piano and musical theory. She actually went there from the ages of 8 through 18. However, Lara had problems at her high school (lycee) – and ultimately she was thrown out for poor math grades and general insubordination after challenging the authorities in a number of ways. Always strong-headed!
**Not that that really mattered to her – one girl whose classroom was next to Lara’s, said that at each class break, Lara went around singing and vocalizing in the hallways. At the age of 14 she left school entirely (as is allowed in Belgium) to go sing in piano bars throughout Brussels with her father. Note, however, that she was still going to the music conservatory.
**And that summer Lara had her first romantic attachments; needless to say they were will filled with wonder, frustration and ultimately disappointment, appropriate for that age.
Concerning the coming week: as usual there’s no information on the official site as to how long Lara will be in China (as it didn’t mention she was going to be there, still does not list the Mlle. Zhivago CD, and instead has another performer’s music advertised on its welcome site) - but one hopes she hasn’t gone all that way to just turn around and leave. If Mlle. Zhivago is going to get a far flung existence, we should be expecting Lara to be visiting these exotic (for her) venues in the coming months.
David
The rumors about Lara going to China came true perhaps quicker than anybody expected, further emphasizing that 2011 will be a year of new horizons for her. She participated in the Spring Festival in Beijing, performing two songs. She had to sing ‘I Will Love Again’, as it won in the voting by Chinese participants over ‘Broken Vow’, and despite her reported disdain for that song, the snippets we heard from the video report of the festival sounded as if she did it well, If Lara ventures into the wide world with English language songs this coming year, she better get used to it, because it will be her most obvious introduction in many countries. She also performed a duet with the Chinese singer Shang Wenjie of ‘J’y croire encore’, snippets of which again sounded quite good. Videos of Lara’s being introduced and the news item showing these fragments are available on youtube and larafabiannews.com (the latter site and larafabianweb.com have some nice pictures of the event). It would be great to see the full songs, although it’s not clear (to me) whether people are able to film from the audience at this festival. However, it is supposed to be shown on TV there, so perhaps that offers another opportunity to record it.
Laetitita on larafabianweb.com says that it is her understanding that Lara’s appearance in China is due to the desire to release Mlle. Zhivago in Asia Minor. Meanwhile, in neighboring Russia, Mlle. Zhivago sales stayed strong, with Lara at #5 on the Russian chart (down from #4) – she’s now been in the top five for 8 straight weeks. In the little blurb underneath the listing for the album, it says that 2011 will be the year for the release of this album in Europe. Lara has said Italy and Germany are next – perhaps there will then be appearances in those countries to support it (and she will get further chances to sing ‘I Will Love Again’ ☺ ).
In this air of greater outreach, additional rumors of future projects abound. The website greatsong.net has the following comment (in translation): “In addition a collaboration with Steven Spielberg is expected. The director asked her to put her voice on a soundtrack. Both artists are preparing to release a film and musical project together.” One project that Spielberg apparently has been considering is a film on the Bee Gees; in addition Lara herself apparently indicated Spielberg might be working with Alan Badoev on a small film in the Ukraine. After seeing Lara in China, one guesses that anything is possible!
Back in France, the ‘best of’ is now down to 15th in the list of compilations, and 90th overall on the charts (a drop of 24 places). It is #4 in Belgium, a gain of 3 places. At the same time, the stand-alone DVD of ‘TLFM font leur show’ has entered the charts in 17th place. It was also reported that Lara was willing to participate in the French version of ‘Dancing with the Stars’, but apparently, for whatever reason, she isn’t going to be doing it. The very idea was an anathema to some fans – "would Celine lower herself to something like that?" - while others felt that Lara is a good dancer and they’d like to see it. Actually it fits with Lara’s approach of doing what she feels would be interesting, regardless of whether people think it’s good for her career or not.
As noted in her separate post, Noa (a fan) reported that in December, there was a news item in Israel that Lara is going to start work on a new (presumably French) album with the Israeli Giora Linenberg. This probably refers to the rumored album thought of as ‘Le Secret’ that Lara had previously said is ready – maybe she meant that figuratively. As we know, last week’s rumor said Lara was already working on a new English album with Igor Krutoi, with the fragment of the song “Always” representing a part of it. The two items are not necessarily incompatible if they are aimed at different markets, but the time to do each one of them justice makes the simultaneous development of two completely new projects somewhat unfeasible (as compared to the ‘best of’ and Mlle. Zhivago, only one of which was really new). In addition, we’ve seen the difficulty Lara has had promoting two projects at once in different countries; would she really be willing to do that again?
Lara’s work with the charity AMTM is getting some publicity on Laetitia’s website. You may remember that Lara showed up for a photo exhibit dedicated to the charity on November 28th last year. On the URL,
www.larafabianweb.com/?page=expophotosamtm_eng
Laetitia has a chronicle of the event, some pictures, and further information about projects Lara has planned in the future, including an auction of clothing used in her performances. She even is reported to be planning to go on a mission to Nepal (to aid the children of India and Nepal) with an A.M.T.M. team when her schedule allows during 2011. We’ll see if that really happens, as such things have often failed to materialize previously.
Continuing on with the biography of Lara, here are some interesting points from pp. 16-20
** Lara’s father was above all a big country music fan, and he had Lara listen especially to Olivia Newton John and John Denver (whose song ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ was the first one he taught her, and we’ve seen them play portions of it together several different times). [Note that neither of these particular artists is really 'down-home' country.]
**Lara’s mother, on the other hand, was a big fan of Nana Mouskouri, and her music was played most of all. Lara got as a present the complete, seventy-two (!) vinyl record set for her to go through. The first record she ever got, from her father, was “Je m’envole” by Nicole Rieu.
**In addition to going to the Catholic elementary school at Saint Ursle in Uccle, after class Lara attended the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where she studied singing, dance, piano and musical theory. She actually went there from the ages of 8 through 18. However, Lara had problems at her high school (lycee) – and ultimately she was thrown out for poor math grades and general insubordination after challenging the authorities in a number of ways. Always strong-headed!
**Not that that really mattered to her – one girl whose classroom was next to Lara’s, said that at each class break, Lara went around singing and vocalizing in the hallways. At the age of 14 she left school entirely (as is allowed in Belgium) to go sing in piano bars throughout Brussels with her father. Note, however, that she was still going to the music conservatory.
**And that summer Lara had her first romantic attachments; needless to say they were will filled with wonder, frustration and ultimately disappointment, appropriate for that age.
Concerning the coming week: as usual there’s no information on the official site as to how long Lara will be in China (as it didn’t mention she was going to be there, still does not list the Mlle. Zhivago CD, and instead has another performer’s music advertised on its welcome site) - but one hopes she hasn’t gone all that way to just turn around and leave. If Mlle. Zhivago is going to get a far flung existence, we should be expecting Lara to be visiting these exotic (for her) venues in the coming months.
David
