Kingfisher Sky

In 2001 Ivar de Graaf made one of the toughest decisions of his life: he decided to leave the successful Dutch band Within Temptation to concentrate on his own music. Together with singer Judith Rijnveld he explored a way to combine both their influences into songs that didn't bound themselves to a specified genre or style. With influences like Porcupine Tree and Kate Bush, but also Classical singers as Cecilia Bartoli and traditional Folk music in their mind they started recording songs in their home studio in 2005. When they finished seven songs they approached Suburban Records. Judith and Ivar signed the deal in november 2006. Eric Hoogendoorn was the first member to join the band playing the bass guitar. In January 2007 Daan Janzing was introduced to Ivar and Judith by Ruud Jolie, (Ivar's former colleague from Within Temptation). After a short audition on guitar Daan joined Kingfisher Sky. In March George van Olffen joined the band on keys. Because of the beautiful solo in the song 'Through my Eyes' on the demo and his 15-year old friendship with Ivar, Edo van der Kolk completed Kingfisher Sky. In May 2007 the band Kingfisher Sky recorded their first album 'Hallway of Dreams' produced by Jochem Jacobs (Textures) and Bouke Visser (Split Second Sound). Kingfisher Sky's debutalbum 'Hallway of Dreams' was released in Oktober 2007 by Suburban Records. Suburban Records introduced Kingfisher Sky to SOZ Concerts and they started headlining in The Netherlands. Because they wanted to give the audience something special during a show in their hometown, they asked Cellist Maaike Peterse in January 2008 to play the song 'Big Fish'. Because this cooperation was successful Maaike joined Kingfisher Sky as their seventh member. In March 2008 Laser’s Edge Records (Riverside, Zero Hour) released their album in the United States and ‘Hallway of Dreams’ was released on Vinyl by Tonefloat Records (Porcupine Tree, Roger Waters). In August 2008 Disk Union released the album in Japan. Just recently ‘Hallway of Dreams’ also became available in the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany. In July 2009 René Merkelbach joined Kingfisher Sky to replace George van Olffen on Keys who left to pursue other musical interests. With the success of ‘Hallway of Dreams’ Judith and Ivar are currently working on Kingfisher Sky’s second album.