Hymn: An excitingly eclectic new album by Sarah Brightman

Sarah Brightman has unveiled a new full-length album Hymn and has announced her latest world tour, Hymn: Sarah Brightman in Concert. To enhance her world of enchantment, Brightman has partnered with Swarovski; her elaborate costumes and dazzling tiaras will be composed of the precision-cut crystals for her world tour.

Though it’s been five years since Sarah Brightman last released a studio album – 2013’s classical chart topper Dreamchaser – the world’s best-selling soprano has hardly been idle. Not only did Brightman perform over 100 concerts on five continents to support Dreamchaser, but she also took her Gala: An Evening with Sarah Brightman tour to Asia and Mexico in 2016 and the 22-date Royal Christmas Galatour to Europe in 2017. For both tours, she performed songs from her most-beloved albums, Timeless, Eden, and La Luna, and the multiplatinum soundtrack to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, which celebrated its 30th anniversary on Broadway during 2018. Webber was inspired to write the role of Christine Daaé for Brightman – who was already well-known after releasing several hit singles as a solo artist – upon seeing her standout performance as Jemima in the original London cast of Cats.

In early 2016, German composer and producer Frank Peterson, with whom she had celebrated some of her greatest successes, Dive (1993), Fly (1995), Timeless (Time To Say Goodbye) (1997), Eden (1998), La Luna(2000), Harem (2003), Symphony, and A Winter Symphony (both 2008), began talking to Brightman about making a new album. ‘He kept calling me and saying, “Look, it’s time,”’ she recalls. ‘But I didn’t know what I wanted to do.’

Brightman, who had intended to launch on a future orbital spaceflight mission to the International SpaceStation, had halted her cosmonaut training in Russia, which left her feeling vulnerable and depleted. ‘It was quite hard for me to bring myself down to earth again psychologically,’ she says. ‘I went to Florida to lie on the beach, work with an opera coach, and get myself back into a normal pattern again. During this time, Frank and I came to the conclusion that we should do something that sounded very beautiful and uplifting. That was the start of it. So, we started looking at songs that we both felt good about – and suddenly we were working together againinternational successand it all felt familiar.’

Peterson reminded Brightman that audiences flocked to her because of ‘the beauty in her voice’ and that, after mounting a technically complex tour filled with elaborate visuals and effects behind the sciencemindedDreamchaser, a return to something simpler in nature, something spiritual and emotionally connected, might be just the thing to ease the inertia she was feeling. ‘I said, “Okay, you went the science route, let’s try something different,’’’ Peterson says. ‘It wasn’t calculated in any way; it simply felt right to both of us.’

The result is the spiritually themed Hymn – an inspirational collection of orchestrated, choir-based songs that Brightman says felt soothing to record after she came down to earth ‘with an enormous bump,’ as she puts it. ‘I think musicians in particular start from whatever it is they’re going through.’

The album isn’t religious, she says, and it doesn’t include any traditional ‘church songs’. ‘I kept thinking about this word, “hymn”, and what it reminded me of. To me, it suggests joy – a feeling of hope and light, something that is familiar and secure. And that’s something I really needed at that point in my life. Every project I’ve done has come from an emotional place.’

Hymn’s mystical, uplifting tone is set with its title track – a song by British prog-rock band Barclay JamesHarvest. ‘Though obscure in England and America, they are huge in Germany and everybody there can sing along to this song,’ Peterson says. ‘I’ve always thought “Hymn” was a beautiful song that should make its way throughout the rest of the world, and hopefully now with Sarah singing it, it will.’

Hymn, which was recorded over the past two years in Hamburg, Miami, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, and Budapest, includes songs by such modern composers as Eric Whitacre, Japanese superstar musician and songwriter Yoshiki and German DJ Paul Kalkbrenner.

Nearly everything about Brightman’s illustrious career has been pretty epic. Known for her three-octave range and for pioneering the classical-crossover music movement, Brightman has amassed global sales of more than 30 million units. The only artist to have simultaneously topped Billboard’s dance and classical music charts, Brightman has racked up more than 180 gold and platinum awards in over 40 countries. She is also known for her iconic star turn in The Phantom of the Opera, whose soundtrack has sold more than 40million copies worldwide. Her duet with Andrea Bocelli, ‘Time To Say Goodbye’, became an international success, selling 12 million copies worldwide.

Brightman will launch The Hymn World Tour, which will include 125 shows on five continents throughout 2019. Of the tour, Brightman says fans should ‘expect the unexpected!’