Hey there, Somervillians!!*or Somervillains, if you'd like to sound more hardcore 
Once again, there are some exciting goings on in the pipeline. I've been asked to do a collaboration with the legendary Michael Kiske along with Mat Sinner and Magnus Karlsson. Here's the official press release:
---Former Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske is collaborating with American singerAmanda Somerville on a brand new melodic hard rock/metal project forFrontiers Records. Mat Sinner (Primal Fear, Sinner) and Magnus Karlsson(Place Vendome, Primal Fear) are handling most of the songwriting for the CD, which is tentatively due in early 2010.
Commented Kiske: "This is another idea by Serafino (Frontiers owner). I did a duet with a female singer on 'Breathing Water' by Indigo Dying. It was so nice that he offered me a chance to make an album of all duet songs with a famous female singer."
Sinner added: "We're working hard on the songwriting for the first [Kiske/Somerville] album. It's a pleasure to write and produce Michael's next album, and with Amanda as the co-singer, it's something very special. I wrote songs with Magnus and Jimmy Kresic for the album, and we're really excited about the songs. Eight tracks are pre-produced now and we need another two songs before we will start the real recordings. After Forever mainman Sander Gommans plans to join us and he's working on new songs with Amanda at the moment! Look out for a melodic metal masterpiece in early 2010!"
Somerville is the American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who was tapped to replace Epica vocalist Simone Simons on the band's North American tour with Symphony X due to Simons' health issues.
Amanda was featured on Kamelot's latest release, "Ghost Opera", and recently toured with Avantasia. She last year released her long-awaited solo album, "Windows".
A Michigan native, Amanda has resided and worked mainly in Germany and the Netherlands since 1999. She has collaborated with several other bands in the metal scene along with producers Sascha Paethand Miro, and co-wrote the rock opera "Aina". Her own music is of the pop-rock genre. ---
AND... dum da da dum! I'll be going on tour in January with a shindig called "Rock Meets Classic." After some deliberating over whether I'd do it or not, I decided there was no way I could pass up the chance to sing, "Africa" with Bobby Kimball (Toto), "Love Hurts" with Dan McCafferty (Nazareth) and "I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You" with Lou Gramm (Foreigner). How cool is that?
I've posted the dates here on MySpace and they'll soon be on amandasomerville.com as my new site is ready to be launched, thanks to Antonio Cesar (who also designed my new MySpace page. Yay!
I am now off to an intimate show I'm performing together with Robert (Hunecke-Rizzo) in a beautiful place called Gut Wienhausen. Then tomorrow, I'm headed to the Netherlands for a songwriting session with Sander. So, always stuff happening and there's more coming, so keep checking back!
Sugar & spice & everything nice,
Amanda