Nicky & Roma Ryan

Shares a house in Artane, in the north of Dublin, together with Roma, his wife who also comes from Belfast, and Enya. All had been involved with Clannad at some time. Nick Ryan had worked as a sound engineer with Planxty and later with Clannad, at the time the group was starting out. In 1980, their manager, Fachtna O'Kelly, took charge of the new group The Boomtown Rats, for which reason Nicky thenceforth took charge of their [Clannad's] work. In his house he installed a recording studio, Aigle. There he has recorded, for example, Christy Moore's album "Ordinary Man," which has three songs in which Enya takes part in the chorus. It was also Fachtna O'Kelly who suggested to Enya after she left Clannad, that she devote herself to composing for films. And so, in 1984, she approached her first important task. Roma Ryan had sent a cassette of Enya to film producer David Puttnam, who already had to his credit such titles as MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, CHARIOTS OF FIRE and LOS GRITOS DEL SILENCIO. Puttnam asked her to compose dreamy and romantic music with a sixties feel for the feature film THE FROG PRINCE. Having a studio at her disposal, Enya worked almost always at home with the Roland Juno 60 synthesizer or the Kurzweil sampler, and then added piano and voice. Nicky Ryan recorded everything and helped to put the compositions into their final form. The next commission was for the BBC. It was to prepare music for an important television documentary series on the history of the Celtic civilisation throughout its 2700 years. The series was called "The Celts." The composition took ten months work. The music was liked so much that the BBC decided to release a selection as an independent record, before the series was broadcast and entitled simply "Enya," with barely a mention in the liner notes that it was a soundtrack. Enya played nearly all the instruments on the album, sometimes doubling up as many as eighty voices to create her characteristic sound, of dense textures, and ethereal voices, dreamlike and enchanting. It was to paint by means of synthesizers a modern sonic landscape that could evoke different atmospheres, from the mournful lament of 'Deireadh An Tuath' to the striking 'Boadicea', with its astounding dynamic of overdubbed voices. Nicky Ryan acted as producer and co-author of the arrangements and his wife Roma wrote nearly all the lyrics, for the most part nearly inaudible or impenetrable, giving an evanescent character to the music by being sung in Latin, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic. This record subsequently climbed to number one in the Irish charts, which started the commercial rise of Enya. Although fronted by Enya, the music released under her name is the result of collaboration between three people: Enya, who sings, writes and performs all the music, her producer, sound engineer and co-arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. Enya has previously stated that without any one of them, "Enya" would not exist.  Nominated for Achievement in Music in Connection with Motion Pictures (Original Song) 2001: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING "May It Be" - Music & Lyric (w. Enya and Roma Ryan) 1 nomination