Music: Chloe Agnew
Twink’s daughter Chloe Agnew leaves her super group to go solo
Chloe Agnew
It is now over two years since Chloe Agnew left the hugely successful Celtic Woman ensemble. She struck out on a quest for solo success after 10 years performing in the all-conquering show. Next Saturday, as a concert headliner in the National Concert Hall, the 26-yearold singer will on occasion delve back into her Celtic Woman days but also aims to show that her musical horizons have broadened.
‘I started with the group when I was very young, I was only 14,’ she says.
‘My voice suited what Celtic Woman did at that time. Like every child, my voice changed as I got older. But there is a certain thing you are asked to do with Celtic Woman and that’s that.’
Chloe is now based in Los Angeles with her boyfriend Dermot Kiernan, who she met while he too was a singer in the Celtic Woman show. Chloe and David have already become a part of LA’s Irish ‘Murphia’. ‘I treasure the little Irish community here and because it’s smaller than on the east coast you get to know everybody really quickly,’ she says.
‘As well as Dermot, I’d be friends with people like Damien McGinty [who was in the 2012 series of Glee] and Emmet Cahill (from the group Celtic Thunder]. Caroline Morahan is out here too, of course. We’ve had some good craic together.
‘My main focus since has been songwriting. The brilliant thing about Los Angeles is that you can find someone here to write with you no matter what genre. I’ve written bluegrass songs and there’s a bit of the soul sister in me too [she does a decent cover of Tina Turner’s River Deep Mountain High]. I’ve been experimenting and that’s been a joy. Songwriting has always been a cathartic, therapeutic thing for me.’
When she takes to the stage next Saturday, her mother, Twink, will look on proudly. Her father, David Agnew, will guest on oboe. Their past travails are well-documented and discussion of Chloe’s feelings about her parents’ breakup has been placed beyond the limits of our interview.
She says she discussed her decision to leave the Celtic Woman show with both of them.
‘I had flirted with the idea of moving to LA six months prior to leaving Celtic Woman. I developed wanderlust. Soon I was already mentally leaving the show. I saw myself already in this new place and doing something new in my life. When I went back out on the road again with Celtic Woman for what was to be my final tour with them, I found that my head was somewhere else and that was very difficult.
‘I’m not saying I’m closing the door on that forever but I’m proud of walking away from it. Life is all about changes – what ones you make and how they affect you.
‘I’m proud to have been one of the original members of Celtic Woman, the youngest member.’
It might seem that given the talents and profiles of her parents, her becoming a performer of some type was inevitable, but Chloe doesn’t agree. ‘It all happened by accident, honestly,’ she insists. ‘Being surrounded by music and people who played music, of course, was just a way of life but ending up in the music business wasn’t due to a decision I actually made.’
She made her debut aged six on RTÉ radio singing a song from the musical Oliver! Over the next few years she won various competitions and earned a place in the Christ Church Choir just after her ninth birthday.
‘When I was 11 I released a song for the children of people who were affected by 9/11; that did really well,’ she says.
‘Celtic Connections became interested in me doing an album when I was about 13. I didn’t overthink it. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I released a follow-up and then the creative team for Celtic Woman came up with the concept for that.
‘When they asked me to be part of it, it was meant to be only a onenight show back in 2004. Then, lo and behold, after PBS showed it in America, it became something like an overnight sensation.’
As a 20-year veteran of show business at only 26, Chloe is an old head on young shoulders.
‘I’ve been fortunate,’ she says. ‘Because music is in my blood if you like, I feel I have an innate sense of what works and what doesn’t. ’
Chloe Agnew appears in concert next Saturday, January 16, in the National Concert Hall.
‘Life is all about changes – what ones you make and how they affect you’