Lisa Germaine Gerrard ( jə-RARD; born 12 April 1961) is an Australian musician, singer and composer. She is a former (and founder) member of the group Dead Can Dance, which she formed with music partner Brendan Perry. Known for her unique singing style technique (glossolalia), she has a dramatic contralto voice and has a vocal range of three octaves. Born and raised in Melbourne, Gerrard played a pivotal role in the city's Little Band scene and fronted post-punk group Microfilm before co-founding Dead Can Dance in 1981 (remaining a member until 2022). With Perry, she explored numerous traditional and modern styles, laying the foundations for what became known as neoclassical dark wave. She sings sometimes in English and often in a unique language that she invented. In addition to singing, she is an instrumentalist for much of her work, most prolifically using the yangqin (a Chinese hammered dulcimer). Gerrard's first solo album The Mirror Pool was released in 1995. She has since been involved in a wide range of projects, starting her first collaborative album in 1998 with Pieter Bourke, and later with various artists such as Patrick Cassidy, Klaus Schulze, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, and Zbigniew Preisner among others. She has scored numerous award-winning motion picture soundtracks. As of 2020, Gerrard has released four solo albums and collaborated on sixteen albums. She has composed or contributed to the scores of more than 48 films. She received a Golden Globe Award for the music score to the 2000 film Gladiator, on which she collaborated with Hans Zimmer. She wrote the score of Balibo which went on to win an ARIA award for Best Original Soundtrack and an APRA Screen music award for Best feature film score. Overall she has won 11 awards receiving 23 nominations. Gerrard has been nominated for a Grammy Award twice. Gerrard is often affiliated with the "wailing woman" music phenomenon, popularized in Gladiator.
Early life Lisa Gerrard was born in Melbourne to Irish immigrant parents, and grew up in Prahran, an inner suburb with a substantial Greek population. She recalled growing up with "Mediterranean music blaring out of the houses" and said that this influenced her music, particularly on later Dead Can Dance albums and in her solo and collaborative works. Gerrard first began forming bands and creating original music as a member of Melbourne's Little Band scene, an experimental post-punk scene which flourished from 1978 until 1981. It was in this scene that she first met Dead Can Dance co-founder Brendan Perry. Perry recalls, "It never occurred to me that we would one day collaborate musically together because at the time I thought her music was too avant-garde. I particularly remember one song that she sang about finding a man in the park and asking her mother if she could bring him home to keep in her wardrobe as she attacked this chinese dulcimer with two bamboo sticks". Around this time, Gerrard became the lead vocalist of Microfilm, which released "Window", and one single, "Centrefold", in 1980, via Unforgettable Music label. The group issued a third song, "Summer House", on Ron Rude's From Belgrave With Love compilation, which was released by Cleopatra Records in 1981.
Career
Dead Can Dance
Dead Can Dance originally formed as a quartet in 1981 in Melbourne, with members Gerrard, Perry, bassist Paul Erikson, and drummer Simon Monroe. By 1982, Gerrard, Perry and Erikson decided to relocate to London, but Monroe decided to stay in Australia, leaving the band as a trio. The band split in 1998, but reunited in 2005 for a world tour. In 2012, the band announced a new world tour to coincide with the release of their new album, Anastasis. Dead Can Dance's albums Spiritchaser (1996) and Anastasis (2012) both reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart. Dead Can Dance recorded seven studio albums on the 4AD Records recording label—beginning with the self-titled Dead Can Dance LP in 1984, and two studio albums released by PIAS Recordings. Gerrard departed Dead Can Dance in 2022, leaving Perry to continue the project.
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