Darren Holden

Darren Richard Holden, born on 4 July 1972 in Mooncoin, County Kilkenny, Ireland, is an Irish singer-songwriter who has built a career spanning Broadway performances, solo recordings, national touring productions, and membership in the Irish folk group the High Kings.

Holden began gaining professional experience in the mid-1990s, touring extensively in support of the Dublin group Boyzone from 1995 to 1997. During that period he also released charting singles in Ireland, including "Don't Give Up on Us" at number 23 and "More Than I Can Say" at number 20, both in 1997, followed by "The Rose of Mooncoin" at number 28 in 1998. His debut solo album, Suddenly, was released in Ireland at the end of 1998.

In 1999, Holden joined the Irish dance and musical production Rhythm of the Dance as lead vocalist, spending ten months performing across Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, and Yugoslavia. He then joined the Broadway production of Riverdance in February 2000 as a featured vocalist. The show ran for eighteen months and included promotional appearances on NBC's Today Show and CBS' Early Show. Holden remained with Riverdance until June 2003, at which point he had also participated in the national tour for that production.

While based in New York City during his time with Riverdance, Holden collaborated with country music producer Don DiNicola to record an album of contemporary and traditional country material titled Live & Learn, with sessions taking place in New York and at OmniSound in Nashville. Several US country radio stations played the album, and by the end of 2003 three tracks had featured prominently on airplay charts. "Blood and Smoke" was released through Universal Records, while Miles Copeland's ARK 21 label released "Wherever You Are," which reached number 17, and "Ecstatic Electricity." Country artist Rodney Crowell referred to Holden as an Irish Bryan White and invited him to Nashville, where the two co-wrote the song "Wendy's World."

After departing Riverdance, Holden moved into the Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp rock musical Movin' Out on Broadway, taking on the lead piano man role. He performed that role on Broadway for six months before originating the lead for the US national tour, which ran from January 2004 to January 2007 and also played in Toronto and Japan. His Broadway appearances with both Riverdance and Movin' Out took place between 2000 and 2004.

On 22 August 2006, Holden released the album Roadworks, produced by Bryan Steele and Tommy Byrnes. Distributed by Columbia in Japan following a television and radio promotional campaign, the album sold in excess of 30,000 copies there. Its seventh track, "5 Star Day," was included the following year as an instrumental in the soundtrack of Cars Mater-National Championship, making it the most digitally successful song of his solo career to that point.

Among his other performance credits, Holden has appeared alongside Paul Young, Belinda Carlisle, and Bonnie Tyler, and has worked with Boyzone, B*Witched, Peter Andre, and the Backstreet Boys. His performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" led to an invitation to sing it for President George W. Bush at the White House.

In June 2007, Holden was invited to join the High Kings, a new Irish ballad group that also included Brian Dunphy, Finbarr Clancy, and Martin Furey. The group's debut album was released on EMI in February 2008, reaching number 2 on the Billboard world music charts, number 7 in Ireland, and the top position on various Amazon Music charts, with the album subsequently certified platinum in Ireland. The band completed three sold-out tours of the US and Ireland in support of the record.

The High Kings released Friends for Life in 2013, which reached number 5 in the Irish Top 40 and number 3 on Billboard's World Albums chart. The opening track, "Oh Maggie," was written by Holden and became the most-played and downloaded song from the album in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Germany. On 30 January 2017, the group received the Outstanding Achievement in Irish Music Around the World award at the Sunday World Entertainment Awards. Later that year, their compilation Decade: The Best of the High Kings was released on 3 November 2017 and reached number 1 on iTunes. The band was nominated for Best Album at the 2018 Irish Post Awards at the INEC in Killarney, where they performed alongside Phil Coulter.

Also in 2017, Crashed Records rereleased Holden's song "Lady" on 24 August, marking the twentieth anniversary of its original 1997 release. The reissue, dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, reached number 3 on iTunes. Holden has also presented episodes of the Sky TV Channel 389 series Keep it Country, broadcast in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In October 2009, he was among seven Irish celebrities who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin, an event later documented in an RTÉ television documentary broadcast on 18 July 2011.