'The Magic of Christmas'
Press Staff | Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 4 years, 4 months AGO
Northwest artist Kika Morelan released "The Magic of Christmas" in May with the expertise and talent of former Nashville producer Michael Lewis, who lives in Hayden with his wife, son and daughter, who all also contributed their talents to the project.
Courtesy photo
Kika Morelan, originally from Finland, released a new Christmas album earlier this year with the help of the Lewis family of Hayden. Morelan's music can be found on YouTube, Amazon and Apple Music.
Father-daughter duo Bridgette and Michael Lewis are seen here in a still of a music video, performing as their band, One Street Over. They recently contributed their talents to a new album by Kika Morelan, "The Magic of Christmas."
Kika Morelan is an Inland Northwest-based vocalist who loves an eclectic variety of music styles.
But she doesn’t perform live — she shares her talents through studio projects and music videos.
Her newest album, "The Magic of Christmas," was released in May. To produce this 18-song album, which features an array of Christmas favorites in various styles, she recruited the expertise of former Nashville producer Michael Lewis, who now lives in Hayden.
"For her albums, we get together, decide on a song list, the style and direction for the songs and away we go," Lewis said. "We started working together back in 2016 and this particular project was three years in the making."
All the songs originated in Lewis' Hayden studio.
"Some of the instrumental parts are recorded at studios in Nashville and then sent back to me," Lewis said. "While they’re doing parts in Nashville, I'd be working on parts here in the A room of our studio and my son Jordan also produced some of the songs and parts from our B room."
Michael and his daughter, vocalist and producer Bridgette Lewis, contributed the background vocals, except for the gospel choir that sang on "O Holy Night." Michael's wife, professional graphic artist Marjie Lewis, created the album art for "The Magic of Christmas."
Morelan and crew are already planning a follow-up project that will cover songs by Michael Buble’, Cliff Richards, Michael Jackson, Queen, Rascal Flatts, Garth Brooks and more, along with some original arrangements of a few classic jazz standards.
"We’ll have our Nashville choir back on a couple of songs and one of the songs features a full, big-band horn section," Michael said. "We also just filmed two new music videos that will be released with her new project. One was filmed on Mt. Spokane and at Arbor Crest in early October. The second one was filmed at Lake Coeur d'Alene just last week."
Morelan performs Amy Grant’s "Breath of Heaven" in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8GSgwEWNj4
Her music is available on Amazon, Apple Music and more.
