page_title: Cara Dillon
section_title: Notable events, collaborations and guest appearances
hierarchical_section_title: Cara Dillon / Biography / Notable events, collaborations and guest appearances
caption_attribution_description: Cara Dillon at Cambridge Folk Festival 50th Anniversary.
context_page_description: Cara Elizabeth Dillon is an Irish folk singer. In 1995, she joined the folk supergroup Equation and signed a record deal with Warners Music Group. After leaving the group, she collaborated with Sam Lakeman under the name Polar Star. In 2001, she released her first solo album, Cara Dillon, which featured traditional songs and two original Dillon/Lakeman compositions. The album was an unexpected hit in the folk world, with Dillon receiving four nominations at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
  Dillon’s second album, Sweet Liberty, entered the Irish album charts and UK Indie album charts. In 2004, Dillon received the Meteor Irish Music Award for Best Irish Female. Her third album, After the Morning, was released in 2006. The album’s opening track “Never in a Million Years” gained Radio 2 Airplay, while other tracks featured the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Paul Brady. Also in 2006, Dillon sang at the opening of the Ryder Cup in Ireland.
  In 2009, Dillon released her fourth album, the award-winning Hill of Thieves. The record marked a return to Dillon’s traditional roots with a purer production and arrangement style.
context_section_description: Throughout Dillon's career she has ventured into many successful collaborations with a range of artists. In 1998, she was guest vocalist (credited as "Cara from Polar Star") for Mike Oldfield on the single from his Tubular Bells III album, "Man in the Rain". In 2001, she featured on two tracks on the John Reynolds project Interview with the Angel, an album by Ghostland. Cara sang on the tracks "Faith in Love" and "Sacred Touch of Beauty", the former being the album's lead single. 2005 saw her guest on the soundtrack to Keeping Mum, a British comedy. In 2003, she performed at the Belfast Festival at Queen's Opening Ceremony with the Ulster Orchestra.
  Also on the dance scene, Dillon's award winning version of Black Is The Colour was remixed by DJ Pete Devine (2Devine/Coco & Green) and became an instant hit on the dance floors in 2005. Over the next year, the popularity grew steadily and the track topped many polls and became a favourite of the top DJs on the scene. Following legal difficulties with the clearance of the track the release on the Anjunabeats dance label was not until 19 March 2007.
  The year 2006 Dillon was honoured with the invitation to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club in Ireland. She sang the Irish song Mo Ghile Mear to an audience estimated at 500 million worldwide with Afro Celt Sound System vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird, a 60 piece choir and 23 piece band. In October 2006, she performed at the re-opening of the prestigious Grand Opera House in Belfast. In 2006, Judge Jules released his debut album, to which Cara provided vocals on the lead UK single Ordinary Day. The trance track was a big club hit and entered the UK dance charts at 3.  2006 also saw Dillon involved with the BBC Radio 2 Radio Ballads, and her vocals feature on the episode Thirty Years of Conflict. This was released on CD and an album of songs from the radio ballads has also been released (see Discography).
  In 2009, Cara recorded the official Children in Need single, All You Need Is Love alongside Peter Gabriel, Terry Wogan, Hayley Westenra and others at Abbey Road Studios. In September she also recorded a live DVD called "Cara Dillon – Live at the Grand Opera House" in the Opera House in Belfast with the line up from her award winning album Hill of Thieves.  Acclaimed loudspeaker manufacturers Bowers & Wilkins used 11 songs from this recording in their Society of Sound music club which showcases ultra high quality audio recording for audiophiles. The live recording of "The Hill of Thieves" was also used by Bowers & Wilkins as a demonstration song in-store throughout the world on their Zeppelin Air iPod Speaker.
  In 2010, Cara recorded the opening song "Summer's Just Begun" for Disney's Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue as well as narrating the opening sequence. She also sang a lullaby called "Come Flying With Me" featured during the credits for the movie. It reached the Box Office Top 10 upon its national cinema release in the UK in August 2010 and is the third instalment of Disney's highly successful franchise.
  In January 2012 Cara recorded the vocals on a song called "Come Dream A Dream" which forms the closing sequence of the nighttime spectacular show, Disney Dreams!, which was designed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Disneyland Paris. In the summer of 2012 Cara performed two concerts with the Ulster Orchestra. The first was to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Ulster Hall at an event called the Great Northern Songbook where "Hill of Thieves" was voted by BBC listeners as one of the "Top 10" original songs to come out of Northern Ireland. The second was a concert where the Ulster Orchestra joined Cara and her band in the Grand Opera House in Belfast.
caption: Dillon at the Cambridge Folk Festival, 2014
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