“Neil has an instinct and a feel for different strands of music that allow him to create uncompromised musical worlds with real depth and authenticity” Martin Hayes

Neil Ó Lochlainn is a musician and composer from Ballyvaughan. His work is dedicated to exploring the contemporary and the universal in the local and creating a contemporary musical language derived, primarily, from Irish influences.

He has been described as “a musical seeker” (The Irish Times) and his work as “redefining the possibilities of Irish traditional music” (All about Jazz)

He began learning traditional music on the flute and tin whistle at a young age from Denis Liddy and Eamonn Cotter and studied double bass with David Whitla at the Cork school of Music.

In 2011 he co-founded Ensemble Ériu to develop new concepts in Irish traditional ensemble playing. The project has released three critically acclaimed albums and In 2015 received the TG4 Gradam Comharcheol award.

‘Imbas’ was nominated for the Irish Times traditional album of the year in 2016 and ‘Stargazer’ was listed at no.3 in Songlines’ essential Irish albums of all time. Released on Diatribe Records, ‘Stargazer’ is a collection of compositions inspired by the work of Jack B. Yeats and commissioned by the Model Arts Centre, Sligo.

In 2016 he founded Cuar, a chamber ensemble dedicated to exploring composition and improvisation within the framework of Irish traditional music. The projects third album ‘Tairseach’ was released in 2024 and is a suite of music written in response to Tommie Potts’ 1972 album The Liffey Banks.

As a jazz musician he has been bassist of choice for many of Ireland’s leading musicians including Myles Drennan, Richie Buckley, Hugh Buckley, Meilana Gillard, Ian Date, Seán Carpio, Mike Nielsen and Greg Felton. He was a member of the Louis Stewart quartet from 2012 until the guitarists death in 2016.

He has received numerous awards including the Arts Councils Next Generation bursary and has attended workshops and residencies at the Banff Centre Creative Music workshop, Canada, the S.I.M (school for improvisational music) workshop, New York, the Gullisktan residency, Iceland and the Cill Rialaig residency, Ballinskelligs.

In 2015 and 2017 he travelled to Chennai, India to study Karnatic music at the Brhaddhvani Institute with Dr. K.S.Subramanian and has travelled throughout Ghana to study the traditional music of the Ewe and Dagara people.

Emain Ablach is a mythological tale expressed through a suite of music in three movements written for thirteen musicians with an interwoven text by poet Aifric Mac Aodha. It premiered at the Imram literature festival, Dublin in November 2023.