In The Spotlight
December 29, 2000

Maren Ord

Maren was born in Edmonton, although she is a dual citizen -US/Canadian...she considers herself Canadian through and through. She is one of ten brothers and sisters.

Maren began to compose her own music when she was about 14. She sang quite a bit in Jr. High - D.S. Mackenzie absolutely loving punk music. She competed in a Battle of the Bands in High School - Harry Ainlay playing her own compositions and won both years.

When she was 16 her older sister Shannon dropped off an application for our local radio station Power 92 sponsoring a contest to have an opportunity to be on a compilation CD. It was due the next morning. She quickly recorded four of her songs that night on a tape and we delivered the next morning. She found out that she had won one of six spots to be on the CD - Power Picks 2. Her song "Eternity" was chosen to be a single and went into heavy rotation on radio stations across Canada.

The producer of Power Picks 2 approached Maren's parents hoping to work with her to further and develop her talents as a singer/songwriter. He sent a demo of approximately 5 of her songs to Lilith Fair where Terry McBride (manager to the likes of Sarah McLachlan/Barenaked Ladies, etc.) took notice and approached Maren's parents with an interest in managing her. Agreeing to this he soon had a major record deal with Sony for publishing, Nettwerk for Canada and Capitol Records for the rest of the world. Maren did indeed perform at Lilith Fair 1998 and 1999 singing onstage with Sarah McLachlan, Paula Cole, and Sheryl Crow.

When a producer was found - Stephen Hague doing the honors, a time and place was set to record her debut album. Leaving for New York Oct. 1999 she recorded for 2 months and took a short break for Christmas and then flew to London England in Jan. 2000 to record for another 2 months. She returned again to London for a short stay in April to finish up. London was a fantastic experience. She recorded at The Rak right next to Regents Park located in Primrose Hill. She loved taking long walks and running in Regents Park often times feeding the ducks.

A "single" as yet has not been decided for Capitol, but Nettwerk is going with a song entitled "Sarah" already on radio. Some of Maren's songs have already hit the airwaves - "Perfect" - on a TV show That's Life, also airing on That's Life was the song "Beautiful". Airing on another show - Felicity was the song "Just Like You". Maren recorded the title song to the movie Thomas & The Magic Railroad in Toronto entitled "Shining Time". She recently recorded her own arrangement of "Chestnuts Roasting" for a Nettwerk compilation CD featuring other artists - Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, etc.

Maren's debut album will be released in Feb/2001 on the Nettwerk label and in March/April on the Capital label. Recently Maren made a trip to LA to meet with the people at Capitol that will be working on her project. It was amazing! As we stepped off the plane in LA there was a chauffeur driving her and her Mom to their hotel, etc. It was a whirlwind trip but with the expectation that she would be back in January to visit with newspaper, media, TV and teen magazine people to introduce herself and do a concert in LA then off to NYC to do exactly the same thing, then back to LA to rest up for a day or two and then do her 19 hr. photo shoot!

On a more personal note, Maren loves ice cream - especially ice cream with chocolate in it. She has a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that she bakes often for her family. She loves wraps with grilled chicken and roasted red peppers, and also bagels and cream cheese. Maren is an artist at the highest level studying art since grade 7 up through high school IB Art. She prefers sketching with pencil/pen to watercolors. She loves designing clothes as well. She designed her own grad dress from high school. Her fav course in high school other than art was Biology. She studied German as a second language. Her most unpopular course - Math.

She recently returned from Salt Lake City, Utah where she did concerts for over a period of 3 weeks singing at the various universities. Maren lives at home sharing a room with her older sister Sarah - Sarah gets the bottom bunk and Maren gets the top! Maren comes from an already musical family. Her mother taught her piano from an early age and her father - a professor of opera/voice has given her tips over the years with vocal production. She has sung for a number of years with her family in their professional group - The Ord Family Singers. She gained a lot of her training from this experience.

Her entire family is musical - they all sing, playing instruments such as bass, guitar, trumpet, french horn, trombone, piano, violin, saxophone and flute. Music has been a huge part in Maren's family. They often end up singing together when they all gather together for dinner singing harmonies. Some of their favorite family tunes - "You Are My Sunshine", hymns of their Church and "The Old Oaken Bucket". At Christmas time they have a special rendition of "Jingle Bells".

Maren's plans? To continue to work on a career in music. She continues to write music having now composed over 40 songs. All of the songs on her debut album are her own compositions. She played either guitar or piano on all of her tracks. Maren is 19 and looking forward to sharing her music.

The biography and images above were borrowed from this Maren Ord site.

Maren's debut CD "Waiting" is now available in limited release. You can order a copy from DeseretBook.com. The CD have a wider release through Capitol Records/Nettwerk in February 2001.

Audio Clips

For more information and news on Maren Ord, please visit these two web sites:



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