Circling back to the Netherlands: Mezzo-Soprano Simone Simons

[the_future_modernes]

ETA: Vocal recordings from MaYaN below.

I used to play this song a great deal a few years ago:

Epica - The Last Crusade (Live Chile 2005)

Wikipedia

Simone Simons (born 17 January 1985) is a Dutch lyric mezzo-soprano^[1] singer who is the lead vocalist of symphonic metal band Epica.

Simons was born in Hoensbroek and had an interest in music from the age of ten; after listening to the Nightwish album Oceanborn at the age of fifteen, she began taking classical singing lessons. She sang in a choir for a couple of months in 2002, joining Epica soon after.MORE

Epica Website


Simone Simons Biography on Epica Website

Simone Simons Interview: A Chat With The Epica Vocalist 2009

Chad Bowar: How did you get started in music?

Simone Simons: When I was 14 I started listening to metal music, then slowly I got into female-fronted metal music like Nightwish, After Forever and Tristania. I really loved the first two Nightwish albums. I really like Tarja’s voice. It inspired me to take classical singing lessons. I already had singing lessons that were in the pop/jazz style, but I wanted to try and see if my voice could reach a nice sound in classical singing. I got in contact with Mark (Jansen, the band’s guitarist) who was still in After Forever. We met one day and I sang for him over the phone. He immediately liked my voice. We had a relationship of 4 ½ years, but haven’t been together for 3 ½ years. That’s basically how it started.

When your romantic relationship ended, was it awkward at first still being in the band together?

Simone SimonsIt was a little bit difficult because we had to live together for a while. Epica meant a lot to us, and therefore it was always Epica. At a certain point it was suffocating where we couldn’t draw a line between Epica and ourselves as a couple. I got in a relationship with Oliver pretty fast. Mark searched a little while longer, and now has a really great girlfriend. Things are really cool. In the end it wasn’t meant to be, and we are thankful we held onto the band. It would have been such a waste if we would have lost that. We are both working hard to keep it that way. We have the same goal in front of us, and that’s Epica, but not us as a couple. We’re just friends, and having fun together as colleagues. MORE

Interview with Simone Simons @cyberangels

If you could sing a duet with anyone, dead or alive, with whom would you sing a duet?

Tori Amos, Imogen Heap, Fiona Apple, they have all special voices. I wonder if my voice would fit one of them. We’ll see, everything is possible if you just believe in it and work your ass off and don’t watch DVD’s all day long ;)MORE

Epica - Solitary Ground [HQ] [Sub Eng]

Face Culture Interview Part 1 -Simone discussed songwriting, their then current album "Consign to Oblivion" and living with Epica.

Part 2


Epica- Sensorium

EPICA - Unleashed

There's a New Project called MaYan that will include her as well as legendary After Forever vocalist Floor Jansen and several others.

The new band MaYaN with many Epica members involved will release their debut album: Quarterpast on the 20th of May 2011.
The 7 singers on this album will be:
Mark Jansen: grunts & screams, Arien van Weesenbeek: grunts, Jack Driessen: screams, Floor Jansen (ReVamp, ex-After Forever), Simone Simons (Epica), Henning Basse (Sons of Seasons) and the revelation and one of the biggest Italian Opera talents, named Laura Macrì.

MaYaN Vocal recordings - Floor Jansen & Simone Simons

MORE

. So keep an eye out for that! I know I will!