Amanda Somerville

Amanda Somerville (born March 7, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach, known primarily for her work with many European symphonic metal bands. Her voice has a wide range, however she has said herself that her tessitura is in the alto range.

Biography

Personal life

Somerville was born in Flushing, Michigan,^[1] attended Flushing Senior High School, graduating a full year early and won a scholarship for graduating with high honors to the University of Michigan in Flint, Michigan, where she majored in psychology.^[2] Somerville moved to Wolfsburg, Germany in 1999 where she's resided, working mainly in Germany and the Netherlands.^[3]

On August 19, 2013, she announced that she was engaged to be married to After Forever's former guitarist Sander Gommans,^[4] and the pair were married on July 28, 2014.^[5] On January 8, 2015, she announced that she and Gommans are expecting their first child.^[6] On July 17, 2015, their daughter, Lana Elise Gommans, was born.

Music career

Somerville has written and recorded with bands such as After Forever, Edguy, Kamelot, Epica, Avantasia, Docker's Guild and has produced two solo albums.^[7] Her solo releases to date are primarily soft and elegant pop rock with some hard rock, folk and soul music influences. Amanda herself wrote and contributed instrumentally to all of the songs on her solo albums with only one exception being "Out" from the album Windows (written by Sascha Paeth).

She collaborated with several of these metal bands alongside producers Sascha Paeth and Michael Rodenberg, which took her to collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Robert Hunecke-Rizzo co-writing the rock opera Aina. Later she made a similar collaboration with guitarist Sander Gommans (After Forever), providing vocals and lyrical concept for the project HDK.^[3] In 2008, she toured America with Dutch heavy metal band Epica, while regular vocalist Simone Simons recovered from a staph infection.^[1]

Kiske/Somerville

In 2010, she collaborated with Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween singer) on a musical project entitled Kiske/Somerville. The band is a melodic metal act put together by Frontiers Records, as similar project as Allen/Lande. Songwriting and producing was made by Primal Fear bassist Mat Sinner with collaboration by guitarist Magnus Karlsson (Allen/Lande, also from Primal Fear), Sander Gommans, Jimmy Kresic and Amanda herself. Their first single, Silence was released on August 20. Their self-titled album was released on 24 September 2010 by Frontiers Records, after the single accompanied by a music video for Silence. A music video was also made for the song "If I Had One Wish." Somerville contributed creatively to the album by writing 3 songs featured on the album: "A Thousand Suns," "Arise" and "Set Afire," all co-written with Sander Gommans.

Avantasia

Amanda was also one of the live guest vocalists for Tobias Sammet's metal opera Avantasia world tours in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2016. Her role onstage was singing backing vocals during the whole setlist and performing lead vocals for the songs "Farewell," "Sleepwalking," "The Wicked Symphony," "Lost in Space" and "Sign of the Cross."^[8]

Trillium

In 2011, Amanda finally released her first heavy metal-oriented project called Trillium with the record company Frontiers Records. The project has contributions by Sascha Paeth, Michael Rodenberg, Sander Gommans and a guest appearance of Jørn Lande on a duet vocal track with Amanda.^[9]

Trillium live band members

• Amanda Somerville - vocals (2011–present)
• Paul Owsinski - guitar (2011–present)
• Marc Burnash - bass, vocals (2011–present)
• Simon Oberender (†) - keyboard (2011 - 2012)
• Philip Krause - drums (2011 - 2012)
• Tom Pluijmaekers - drums (2013)

Docker's Guild

Amanda was featured on Douglas R. Docker's space metal opera Docker's Guild. In 2012, she appeared in the song "Black Swan", a duet with Goran Edman on the debut album The Mystic Technocracy - Season 1: The Age of Ignorance. In 2016, she was featured again in the "Flash Gordon Suite", from Queen's soundtrack of the same name, on the album The Heisenberg Diaries - Book A: Soundsof Future past. ^[10]

New HDK, Kiske/Somerville albums and beyond

In 2014, a new HDK album called Serenades of the Netherworld was released, featuring Amanda and Geert Kroes on vocals and once again produced and composed by Sander Gommans. It was also the year Amanda and Sander got married. Amanda was also part of a metal opera project from middle east, produced by Lebanese guitarist Amadeus Awad, with an album called The Book of Gates. She plays the part of the Queen of the Nile.^[11] In 2015, the second Kiske/Somerville album entitled City of Heroes was announced and released, once again featuring bassist Mat Sinner as producer and in a songwriting partnership with guitarist Magnus Karlsson, who was also in charge of the keyboards, while Veronika Lukesova is the drummer on the album. One song called "Breaking Neptune" was written by Amanda Somerville and Sander Gommans and two music videos were filmed for the songs "City of Heroes" and "Walk on Water".^[12]

Discography

Solo

• In the Beginning there was... (2000)
• Blue Nothing (EP, 2000)
• Never Alone (EP, 2003)
• Windows (2009)
• Conformity Challenged (TBA)^[13]

Aina

• Days of Rising Doom (2003)

HDK

• System Overload (2008)
• Serenades of the Netherworld (2014)

Kiske/Somerville

• Kiske/Somerville (2010)
• City of Heroes (2015)

Trillium

• Alloy (2011)

Collaborations

Somerville's contributions include vocals, coaching, production, engineering and choir conductor:

Featured vocals

• Aeverium – The Harvest EP (2014), What Are You Waiting For (2015); vocal recording
• After Forever – Invisible Circles (2004), Remagine (2005), After Forever (2007); vocal coach, backing/choir vocals, producer
• Andre Matos – Time to Be Free (2007), Mentalize (2009); choir/backing vocals and lyrical editor
• Asrai – Touch in the Dark (2004): lyrical editor
• Ebony Ark – Decoder 2.0 (2007); backing vocals, vocal coach
• Edguy – Hellfire Club (2004), Rocket Ride (2006); backing vocals, lyrical editor
• Epica – The Phantom Agony (2003), We Will Take You with Us (2004), Consign to Oblivion (2005), The Road to Paradiso (2006), The Divine Conspiracy (2007), live session singer for USA Canada tour (2008), Design Your Universe (2009); vocal coach, backing/choir vocals, co-writer, producer, Requiem for the Indifferent (2012)
• Kambrium - Dark Reveries (2013); vocalist on the song "Lake Gloom"
• Kamelot – The Black Halo (2005), Silverthorn (2012); choir vocals and story author based on Silverthorn's concept
• Luca Turilli – Prophet of the Last Eclipse (2002); choir vocals
• Mob Rules – Ethnolution A.D. (2002); choir vocals
• Shaman – Ritual (2002), Reason (2005); backing vocals, lyrical editor
• Virgo – Virgo (2001); vocalist, lyrical editor
• Xandria - Sacrificium (2014); spoken words on the song "Betrayer"

References

Notes

• "Signierstunde von Amanda Somerville. Ball mit allen Unterschriften der VfL-Profis zu gewinnen. Amanda Somerville: "Ich trete gern in den Dialog mit den Menschen."". VfL Wolfsburg-Presseservice (in German). 2003-12-12. Retrieved 2008-05-07. 

External links

• Official website
• Amanda's Official YouTube Channel
• The Rock Station