COMPOSER, arranger, and keyboardist Rolf L?vland, born in southern Norway in 1955, was first recognized for his musical talent at 9 when he assembled his first band. Fionnuala Sherry, a violinist who graduated with honors from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, worked for 10 years with the RTE Concert Orchestra but has always harbored a wide interest in various genres of music. After meeting in 1994, the duo founded Secret Garden, and made history a year later by winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995 with “Nocturne,” an entry that was more an instrumental piece than a song. “Nocturne” was so stylistically removed from the European pop format commonly associated with the song contest that the press stated: “Secret Garden has redefined the Eurovision Song Contest.” The local audiences will be treated to a soul-soothing concert next week, featuring Secret Garden with their time-honored classics, including “Nocturne,” “Beautiful,” “Sleepsong,” “The Reel,” “Hymn to Hope,” and “You Raise Me Up,” among others. “You Raise Me Up” (2001) was made popular throughout the world by artists like Josh Groban, Westlife, Il Divo and more than 1,000 other artists – making it one of the most recorded songs of this century. “We’ve tried to avoid being pigeonholed into particular genres of music. Our music is our own – starting with simple melodies, wanting to tell a story, mostly without words and sometimes with words,” says a statement from the duo’s official website. The band has since recorded 11 albums of their own music, maintaining a strong position as one of the top-selling artists on the Universal Classics & Jazz label — with 113 platinum albums worldwide and more than 3 billion streams on top of 5 million physical albums. A run of 311 weeks at the Billboard New Age charts solidifies their consistent popularity through their quarter of a century career starting with their Eurovision win. Tickets: 280-1280 yuan Time: 7:30 p.m., Oct. 17 Venue: Shenzhen Concert Hall, Futian District (福田區深圳音樂廳) Metro: Line 3 or 4 to Children’s Palace Station (少年宮站), Exit D (SD News) | 