The Mary Black Homepage - News

News from 2003
Date	News
2003-11-25	A limited edition 3CD boxset called A Woman's Heart Trilogy has been released and is available for sale in the website shop.
2003-10-18	Mary won't be able to do the radio show tomorrow at Radio Rijnmond in Rotterdam and neither will she be able to do the signing session afterwards. Mary had to return to Dublin today for the funeral of the seven-year old son of friends of hers. She has been asked to sing Wonder Child at the funeral. Mary will be back in the Netherland for the concert in Eindhoven.
2003-10-13	If you want to listen to the Radio show Cappuccino of last Saturday in which Mary sang two songs and gave a short interview, you can access the show via (you will need a RealMedia player): http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/radio2/ncrv/cappuccino/20031011.rm Mary's first song (No Frontiers) starts at about 2:12:40 The interview and second song (Lay down your weary tune) starts at about 2:42:00 Notice, the show is in Dutch (although the interview with Mary is of course in English), so you might not understand everything.
2003-10-06	During Mary's Dutch Tour 2003, several promotional activities, including radio and TV shows, have been scheduled.
2003-10-03	The concert on Sunday 12 October in Groningen, the Netherlands has been cancelled for real this time.
2003-10-01	After last year's succesfull chat session with Mary, she has agreed to do another chat session this year during the Dutch tour. The chat session is scheduled on Friday 17 October 2003 / Saturday 18 October 2003 (depending on the timezone in which you live). More details about can be found on the chat session webpage.
2003-09-17	The second concert in Groningen (the Netherlands) is back in the tour schedule. Mary will be performing in Groningen on both the 11th and 12th of October. The full schedule can be found on the concert page.
2003-09-09	There has been a change of schedule in the Dutch tour 2003. The concert on the 12th of October in Groningen has been cancelled and has been replaced by a concert on the 14th of October in Leeuwarden. Full concert list can be found on the concert page.
2003-09-06	There is a two page article about Mary in the Irish Music Magazine of September 2003. In this article, Mary talks about her career, including how her voice changed, the way she selects songs and she also mentions her favourite song.
2003-08-12	Mary's final concert of her March 2004 USA tour will be in Oakland. This will be a benefit concert for Parental Stress Service organized by Mary's brother Shay. More information about the venue can be found at http://www.paramounttheatre.com including the possibility to buy tickets online (once it becomes available on that site).
2003-08-05	Mary has recorded several backing vocal tracks for her sister Frances' new album, which is scheduled to be released at the end of September/early October. More information about that album will be posted on the Frances Black Homepage.
2003-07-01	Mary has decided to organize a small get together with her fans the day after the Killarney concert (which is Saturday 26 July). The event will be organized in Dingle, about 1 hours and 15 minutes from Killarney, in the afternoon. Furthermore, there will only be room for a limited number of fans. For this reason, it is important that you register as soon as possible. The availability will be on a first-registered-first-served basis. In order to register, please send an e-mail to meeting@mary-black.net in which you specify your full name and address. If you want to take other people with you to the event, please also provide their full names (more addresses are not necessary). Also, if you decide at a later stage that you cannot attend after all, please inform me about it, so I can give your seat(s) to someone else. The meeting has taken place. A photographic impression of the meeting will be added to the website soon.
2003-06-18	Fabulous news, Mary was won the Irish Music Award 2003 for Best Contemporary Female again!! This was just published in the Irish Music Magazine of July 2003. This award is based on a poll held amongst the readers of the magazine. Besides this award, Mary's documentary Still Believing also won the Industry Award for Best TV Programme/Documentary. And finally, A Woman's Heart - A Decade On won the Best Compilation Album 2003 award. The award ceremony will take place at The National Concert Hall in Dublin on October 7th, 2003. As Mary has a concert planned in Antwerp, Belgium that evening, I expect that Mary won't be attending the ceremony herself.
2003-06-07	Here is a message from Mary: Hi Everyone, Just a quick note to thank all the people who sent me birthday cards and e-mails for a happy birthday, I really do appreciate it . My father always used to say ' The older the fiddle the sweeter the tune' I'm hoping that applies to me!!!! Sure we're all getting older together right? Thanks also to everyone for their support, Much love and best wishes, Mary Black
2003-06-07	For several years now, Mary, Frances and the Black Brothers go on an Irish Festival cruise in the Carribean in January. Many other Irish artists also participate on this cruise. The whole Black Family will be part again of the cruise in January 2004. More details, including how to take part on this cruise, can be found on the website of the Irish Festival Cruise: http://www.irishtours.com/cruise.html
2003-05-15	The NTSC version of the "Mary Black Live DVD" has been finished today. Everyone who has send in their copy of the DVD for exchange and those who ordered the NTSC DVD in the shop, should be receiving the new version soon. (Notice, if you own or have ordered the PAL version and you do not live in the US or Japan, this doesn't effect you. You can use the PAL version without problems).
2003-05-01	For those of you who have problems with the "Mary Black Live - CD & DVD" due to the incompatibility of the video format in the USA and Japan (the DVD is encoded in PAL instead of NTSC), I have been asked by Dara Records to inform you that you can send your "Mary Black Live - CD & DVD" back to Dara Records. However, it will take at least another two weeks before the NTSC DVD is finished, but they will send it to you as soon as it is finished. Please send the whole package (DVD, CD, case and cardboard cover) back to: Dara Records c/o Mary Black Live Replacement DVD Unit 3&4, Great Ship Street Dublin 8 Ireland
2003-04-22	It appears that the DVD is not usable in countries using the NTSC video format (USA and Japan). Although the DVD is region free, the video is encoded in PAL. Dara Records will release a new version of the DVD soon with NTSC video. People who already bought a copy of the DVD and can't play the DVD due to this problem will be able to exchange their copy once the NTSC version will become available. If you want to be kept up-to-date of this exchange problem, please e-mail me at webmaster@mary-black.net and I will inform you when the exchange program has been setup.
2003-04-19	Tickets for the Dutch concert in October can now be bought at the larger postal offices and the tourist bureaus in the Netherlands or via http://www.ticketservice.nl (they also have an option to order in english: https://tickets.lvp.nl/en/index.htm)
2003-04-05	You can now order the new Mary Black Live CD&DVD or the CD&Video directly from Dara Records. Go to http://www.dolphin-dara.ie/mary.html
2003-04-02	Here is a message from Mary to all her fans on the Internet: Hi All, Back home from the US tour which went really well. Everyone was in good form and the audiences were great. I'm looking forward now to the release of the live DVD/documentary on 4th April. There was a surprising amount of work went into the making of it so it'll be nice to have it out there. Mark asked me about a comment I made on the sleeve notes about "hanging up my boots". Well the boots will have to be hung up sometime and I reckon that will happen over the next couple of years. As it is, I'm winding down by degrees but you haven't seen the end of me yet!!. Thank you all for your support. Its much appreciated. Love, Mary
2003-03-31	As I already mentioned before, the DVD will be region free. But I now have a confirmation that the video on the DVD is in NTSC format, not PAL as I assumed before. This is the normal video format for the US (and I believe Japan). Fortunately, almost all, if not every, DVD player in Europe and Australia can play NTSC discs without an problems. They automatically convert it to a PAL signal. This means that the Mary Black Live DVD can be played everywhere around the globe without any restrictions.
2003-03-27	The Mary Black documentary "Still Believing" is due to go out on RTE1 TV station in Ireland this coming Saturday (29 Mar) at 11.35 pm, followed by the Olympia concert at 12.35am (thanks Paul for informing me about this).
2003-03-20	The release of the "Mary Black Live, CD and DVD" has been delayed again for another week. The release date is now set for 4 April 2003.
2003-03-18	On the Mary Black mailing list, Karen posted three links to reviews of Mary's concerts in the USA. I think you might also like to read them: * http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23348-2003Mar13.html * http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story146453.html * http://timesunion.com/ss.asp?s=113909&c=POPREVIEWS&b=REV Carolyn Andre & Jaap Meeuwsen have posted a link on the mailing list to an online radio interview with Mary about "A Woman's Heart - A Decade On" taken from NPR's "Morning Edition": * http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1194369
2003-03-08	Mary will appear on the Fox News Channel program, "After Hours" with Cal Thomas on Saturday night, March 15 at 11 p.m. Eastern Time. This will include an interview and some live performances of Mary taken from The Birchmere in Alexandria, where Fox will tape two of her songs. The show can also be viewed in Ireland and anywhere else in the world where people have access to the Sky News Channel. Simply find the Fox News Channel. In Ireland (North and South) the show airs at 4 a.m. local Time Sunday morning, so you'll have to set your VCR, or get up early!
2003-03-08	The release of the "Mary Black Live, CD and DVD" has been set back for a week. The release date is now 27 March. Also the broadcast of the Still Believing documentary and the Olympia concert on RTE1 has been delayed. The exact broadcast date and time is not known yet, but probably a few days after the release of the CD and DVD.
2003-03-02	Instead of releasing just the DVD on 20 March, the release will now be a live CD together with the DVD. The title of it will be "Mary Black Live, CD and DVD". It will be packaged in a normal CD digipack and should be placed in the CD racks of music shops.
2003-02-20	The Still Believing documentary , followed by the concert, will be broadcast in Ireland on RTE 1 on Sat. 15th of March at 11.30pm The DVD will be released in Ireland on March 20th.
2003-02-19	Mary's only Irish concert this year will be on 25 July 2003 at the NEC in Killarney.
2003-02-05	The official release date for the DVD and video of the Olympia concert and the "Still Believing" documentary is now set on 7 March 2003. There is no known date yet for the US.
2003-02-01	The release for the Olympia concert and "Still Believing" documentary DVD and video is currently scheduled for early March. The DVD will have a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track.
2003-01-23	A Dutch Tour is now confirmed for October 2003. The exact dates of the concert in the Netherlands will be posted soon on the concert page.
2003-01-05	Unfortenately, Mary won't be part of the Woman's Heart TV special and neither will she take part in the Woman's Heart tour in March/April 2003. Another piece of news is that Mary's brothers will be opening for her at the four concerts in Calefornia (see concert page for more details) in March.
2003-01-02	I received some news from Frances Black that might also be interesting for us Mary Black fans: January 25th Frances takes part in a T.V. Special with other artistes from Woman's Heart in Derry. Whether Mary will be part of this TV Special is not known yet, but when I find out, I will let you know. There are plans for a Woman's Heart tour in March/April 2003. When more information becomes available about this, the information will be put online here.