Lisa Gerrard



Lisa Gerrard is an Australian singer born in 1961. Growing up in a multicultural neighborhood of Melbourne, she picked up various influences from the local Turkish and Arab communities that would later show up in her music. Her deep contralto voice is instantly recognizable even by those otherwise unacquainted with her, and she is fond of singing in glossolalia and invented languages.

In 1981 she co-founded Dead Can Dance with Brendan Perry. Starting a solo career in 1995, she released the elegiac, dream-like album The Mirror Pool. She then worked with Pieter Bourke for her next album, Duality, marking the start of fruitful collaboration on a number of well-received film scores (The Insider, Ali). She also worked with Hans Zimmer on the original score of Gladiator, which led to her Signature Style of the One Woman Wail hitting the mainstream and becoming a movie soundtrack trope.

She went on a world tour in 2007, released her third album, The Black Opal, in 2009, and worked on the original score of Ryomaden in 2010.