Sarah Àlainn

Sarah Àlainn is an Australian singer-songwriter. She is mostly active in Japan. In 2010, her vocals were featured on the closing theme song "Beyond the Sky" (composed by Yasunori Mitsuda) for the Xenoblade video game on Wii. While studying at the University of Tokyo, she learned that composer Yasunori Mitsuda was looking for a singer with native-language English for a video game song, and she was hired by Mitsuda for the role. After returning to Australia, she learned that the song was very well received, and decided to become a singer. Àlainn returned to Japan with her family's permission (for only a year) only to begin her musical career. Near the end of the one-year period before she had to return to Australia, her demo CD went to Universal Music and they extended her a recording contract. Her father had recently died and she thinks the contract was his gift to her from beyond the grave. Àlainn's second classical music album Sarah had originally charted at no. 13 in the Billboard Japan Top Classical Albums. In December 2014 it moved up to no. 1, after Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu had performed to the song "The Final Time Traveler" at the exhibition gala of the 2014–15 Grand Prix Final. Àlainn also presented the song with Hanyu as a live music collaboration at the 2014 edition of the touring ice show Fantasy on Ice. In 2015, David Foster offers Sarah Àlainn to sing Colors of the Wind for the Japanese version of the album We Love Disney (2015 album). In 2017, she plays the violin for Ludovico Einaudi's concert at the Sumida Triphony Hall. Since 2018, she has been the co-host of Kabuki Kool (alongside Kataoka Ainosuke VI), a Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) TV program used to introduce kabuki to foreign audiences.