Mark O'Leary

Mark O'Leary was born in Cork City Ireland.Being mainly auto didactic on guitar, he played with a number of local bands including; Midway that led to joining the cult band  Interference for a brief period and Mandrake Root with Brendan O'Connor of RTE and a Synth-Pop band called Voltaire with initial influences The Human League and Cabaret Voltaire. Björk is an influence. Bill Laswell has influenced Mark. One of Mark's primary formative influences were Kraftwerk and he alludes to his electronic music as Post-Kraftwerk. He is also influenced by Tangerine Dream and has produced the In Search of Hades Series (II-IV). Depeche Mode are an important Electro Synth Pop Influence. Ryoji Ikeda is a major influence. His electronic music contains influences of Ryuichi Sakamoto. Joy Division were the primary influence for his first bands. Japan were a formative influence on his embryonic work and also David Sylvian. Gary Numan has influenced his Electronic music. He was also influenced by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Mike Oldfield was a formative influence. He Studied the tape-loop experiments of Steve Reich at Musicians institute, Los Angeles, and Steve Reich has influenced his album 4 Urban Landscapes. He also studied Karlheinz Stockhausen's Tape Music Collages at Musicians Institute and counts him as a major influence. His ambient work is influenced by Brian Eno. Ligeti is also a significant influence. He has also been influenced by Philip Glass. He moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17 to study at Musicians Institute,from where he later graduated. He was the guitar/music teacher of academy award winning best actor Cillian Murphy. He has presented his music in 29 countries and has played at some of the worlds top Jazz festivals and the Kennedy center twice, Knitting Factory, Tonic, CBGB's, Nublu, Luciano Pavarotti Centre, and the Bowery. He had the distinction of performing in the Kenny Wheeler quartet, performed with David Murray and Larry Coryell. He toured Europe and was a member of Canadian Pianist Paul Bley's Last trio where he replaced Bill Frisell. He recorded White Album with Paul Motian, If I see Further than you with Joey Baron and Michael Formanek, as well as A Simple Question with Marc Johnson and Bill Stewart. All on the TIBProd Italy imprint. He toured and recorded the seminal Awakening album with Steve Swallow and Pierre Favre, which earned a review in Jazzwise UK alluding to O'Leary as the most creative guitarist in Ireland and Ireland's best kept secret. He recorded Levitation with Tomasz Stanko and Billy Hart. Mark O'Leary also performed in a historic Duo concert with Tomasz Stanko in the Titanic bar, Cobh Co. Cork performing O'Leary's composition; Titanic Murals, The Titanic Bar was the final sailing point of the RMS Titanic. His album Waiting with Cuong Vu and Tom Rainey which Brian Morton has termed magnificent and had John Fordham of the Guardian praise O'Leary as a superb acoustic guitarist.

He performed in duo with Jack DeJohnette performing elements of Bitches Brew, On the Corner and Big Fun as well as original compositions. He also toured with Tomasz Stanko and Billy Hart, performing On the Corner and Big Fun type material as well as original compositions. He performed in a trio with Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford, in duo with Han Bennink,composed and performed classical music with Cikada string quartet,collaborated in an all electronics setting with Sound Artists Gunter Muller, Erdem Helveciouglu and Jakob Riis,in a free improvisation combo with Evan Parker and Sunny Murray, culminating in the last Murray release Ode to Albert Ayler in duo with O'Leary, performed in concerts with Anders Jormin and Audun Kleive, played Norwegian folk music with Nils Okland, Swedish folk music with Mats Eden, Jazz with Uri Caine, he has performed in seperate projects with trumpeters Axel Dorner (of the Brutalist), Thomas Heberer and Jeff Kaiser. He has the distinction of having played in duo with Paul Bley, Bobo Stenson and Matthew Shipp. In 2004 he toured Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro with Vasil Hadzimanov and Marco Djordevic. He also represented Ireland in the Athens European jazz festival. He has also worked in a trio  Drummer Peter Erskine and Palle Danielsson performing the music from Peter's ECM trio and original covers by O'Leary. He has also collaborated with the innovative percussionists z'ev, Alexander Tarasov and Hans Kristian Kjos Sorensen.He has worked with Stale Storlokken of Supersilent on the seminal St Finn barre's album using church organ and with John Herndon in a trio with Matt Lux and with Herndon on the Ellipses album also featuring Storlokken. He has also worked in different projects key members of the Ganelin Group including its leader; Slava Ganelin. He also in a UK based group with Mark Sanders and Joe Williamson of Trapist. He has toured in the exciting group Zemlya with Eyvind Kang and Dylan Van Der Schyff and also with Dylan and Wayne Horvitz. In conjunction with Alliance Francaise he performed in a trio with Henri Texier and Aldo Romano. He also played several times ECM drummer Jon Christensen. He has played in Poland with drummer Michal Miskiewicz and Tomasz Szukalski (who performed on Tomasz Stankos first ECM album) and with the Oles brothers Bartlomiej and Marcin. He has also played with the Aka Moon rhythm section of Michel Hadzigeorgiu and Stephane Galland. He has also colloborated in trio with Stefan Pasborg and Peter Friis Nielsen as well as working with other Danes Jacob Anderskov and Jakob Riis (on the iconic Grønland album). He has released the New Sibelius Series on TIBProd Italy. He has toured and played with Terje Isungset, including on the Shamanic Voices album on FMR. He also recorded  Waves III on TIBProd Italy in Calabasas as well as Signs and On The Shore all with Alex Cline. Dalliances into contemporary classical with the Sibelius Sonatas and two Piano albums, Piano Music Volume I and Piano Music Vol II, which are imbued with the essences of; Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Charles Ives, John Tilbury and Arvo Pärt.