Draft:Fabienne Erni

Fabienne Erni is the female lead vocalist and harpist for the Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie. She is also the lead vocalist and founder of the symphonic metal band Illumishade. Erni has also learned to play several other instruments, including piano, ukulele and guitar. In June of 2024, she announced the formation of a third band called MINDNOVA.

Career
Fabienne Erni first began to explore her passion for music at age 15, studying Complete Vocal Technique while attending a music school in Copenhagen. Despite being trained as a pop singer, Erni auditioned for and eventually joined the Swiss folk metal band Eluveitie in 2017 following the departure of former lead singer and hurdy-gurdy player Anna Murphy. She was recommended to Eluveitie founder Chrigel Glanzmann by Jonas Wolf, the current rhythm guitarist for the band. Wolf and Erni had previously met while attending the same school.

Upon joining the band, Erni started learning to play the Celtic harp to compliment Eluveitie's assortment of folk and metal instruments. She recorded clean vocals and harp on Eluveitie's 2017 acoustic album Evocation II: Pantheon as well as their 2019 album Ategnatos. Since joining Eluveitie, she has consistently toured with the band and has taken on a position as frontwoman, often being the focus of the group's music videos and frequently giving interviews for the band as well as interviewing other metal musicians during the COVID-19 Pandemic on Eluveitie's official YouTube channel. Along with their studio album Ategnatos, Eluveitie also released a live album in the same year, Live at Masters of Rock 2019, which contains the audio from their performance at the titular festival and includes Erni's vocals and instrumentation.

In 2019, Erni formed Illumishade, a symphonic metal band with Wolf and several other musicians as a part of her Master's degree program. In May of 2020, Illumishade released a crowdfunded album titled Eclyptic: Wake of Shadows, whose songs detail a fictional fantasy world and the story within. Illumishade also launched a website featuring detailed lore of the fictional world in which their music is set, a quiz for fans to determine which fictitonal tribe they belong to, and commentaries on the composition of each song. Illumishade has now released multiple additional singles hinting at future releases. Erni has also lent her voice to several other music projects. These include Tvinna, an electronica prog pop group which also includes fellow Eluveitie members Rafael Salzman and Alain Ackerman; Another Kind, a side project of Vadim "Vidick" Ozhog of Infected Rain; Off The Cross, a Belgian metalcore band; and Spandex of Doom, an 80's cover band of which Wolf is also a member. In 2022, she announced the start of a solo project called Doomed with Pleasure. In early 2023, Glanzmann was unable to be a part of Eluveitie's North America tour, leaving Erni to lead the tour across the continent.

Equipment

 * Celtic harp
 * Piano
 * Ukulele
 * Guitar

With Eluveitie

 * Evocation II: Pantheon
 * Ategnatos
 * Live at Masters of Rock 2019

With Illumishade

 * Eclyptic: Wake of Shadows
 * Another Side of You

As a guest or session musician

 * Tvinna - The Gore
 * Another Kind - Defrost
 * Another Kind - Milestone
 * Another Kind - Sacred Place
 * Off The Cross - This Too Shall Pass
 * Lindsay Schoolcraft - New World
 * Fueurschwanz - Bastard von Asgard
 * Mortemia - Antidote