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Andrea Corr

Andrea Corr

Andrea is the lead singer of the Corrs and one of the main lyricists. She also plays the tin whistle, a traditional Irish instrument.

Andrea tends to lose her tin whistles: either she just forgets them in hotel rooms (along with her mobile phone, but that's another story...) or she throws them into the audience at concerts - they are cheap, so it's not hard to get new ones. When she keeps them, there is hardly anybody who can play the tin whistle this good and this fast - her skills earned her an invitation of Céline Dion to play the tin whistle part in her hit "My Heart Will Go On".

Andrea's tin whistle can be best heard on all the traditional Irish tunes like "Toss The Feathers", also on "Forgiven Not Forgotten" and almost all songs on the debut album. "Only When I Sleep" and "Hurt Before" are also exceptional examples of how to combine modern music with the typical tin whistle sound.

One of her favourite songs to perform is "Runaway" even though she must have played it over a 1000 times at least, since the audience's reaction is always very good to it, and it also reminds her of the days when they started out.

She has always shown interest in singing, and it's usually her remarkable voice people connect with the name "The Corrs". As a child, Andrea could mostly be found in front of the stereo of her parents' living room, listening to her brother's Jim records via head phones and "just bumping away", as Jim recalls.

Andrea not only lends her unique voice to the Corrs but has appeared on numerous other songs. For example, she joined celebrities like Andrea Bocelli, Leann Rimes and Céline Dion to contribute two songs for "Quest For Camelot" soundtrack.

She can also be heard in the movie "In America" with the song "Time Enough For Tears", written by Bono from U2, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. The song has a strong 40's/Cole Porter feeling which was an interesting challenge for Andrea. Never one to shy away from those, it took her only one take to record the song. Since she is friends with Bono who in turn is a friend of German director Wim Wenders, Andrea can also be heard on the track "Don't Come Knocking" to Wenders' film of the same name.

Andrea is always happy to add the extra touch with her tin whistle, e.g. to "The Hands That Built America" or on "The Opus Tree" by John Hughes.

With her brother and sisters busy with their offspring, Andrea took the time to not only appear on various others records as a guest star (e.g. with Gavin Friday or Laurent Voulzy), but also recorded her first solo album called "Ten Feet High", which was released in June 2007.

Also interested in pursueing an acting career (although she inwardly cringes a bit at the description of "singer-turned-actress") Andrea has successfully appeared in various movies: smaller roles in "The Commitments" (1991) and "Evita" (1996), as a lead actress in "The Boys and Girl From County Clare" (2003) and the short movie "The Bridge" (2005).

The latest project is a role in the upcoming movie "Broken Thread" (2005), which is described as a "spiritual horror movie".

Being the youngest sister with three older siblings has made Andrea quite the pet of the family, even though she was and is very close to Caroline, who is just one year older than her - they were basically brought up as twins. Now that all of her siblings have founded families, Andrea doesn't feel pressured to do the same yet. She is a happy auntie babysitting her 6 nieces and nephews when she finds the time.

Andrea herself hasn't ruled out children at all, though she has no plans yet to marry. At the moment, she is involved with Brett Desmond, son of multi-millionaire Dermot Desmond. She tries to keep her private life out of the limelight and succeeds most of the time, even though speculations ran almost amok after she had split from her boyfriend for three years, Shaun Evans.

In her spare free time, Andrea enjoys listening to music by Prince, U2, Coldplay, Travis, Supergrass, Amy Winehouse, Fionn Regan and Simon Garfunkel, reads books by her favourite authors Fyodor Dostoevsky, García Márquez and enjoys cooking.

From Andrea

"I can't read... whose handwriting is this? Oh, hang on, it's mine!"

"Fame? Fame ... I don't think that you ever adjust to that. Maybe in the future we'll look back and go, 'My God!' that was big and we were very famous and all, but that is ... that is a very separate being than we are. You know, this famous picture. I think it has to stay that way so that you can maintain your sanity, because I don't think you're supposed to be looked at this much. I don't think you're supposed to see yourself this much. No person is supposed to see themselves as much as this, you know, and hear their own voices and stuff like that. So I think you've got to separate yourself."

About Andrea

"We have to keep a leash on Andrea, label all her things. If she doesn't lose something on tour, she'll get lost herself." (Sharon)

More About Andrea

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