Rich O'Meara
marimba-percussion-composition-improvisation
Rich O’Meara is most known for his compositions for marimba that are performed and recorded throughout the world. His critically acclaimed solo album, Red Chard, features works for solo marimba, chamber percussion, electronic music, and improvisation. His work has been featured on the NPR program “New Sounds” and the PBS documentary “The Music Instinct, Science and Song”. He presented a master class and concert of his works at the Eighth International Festival of Percussion in Argentina and has received four ASCAP Plus awards.
As a founding member of Silent Orchestra, he began a collaboration with Carlos Garza to develop and perform new scores for classic silent films. They have appeared at museums, theaters, and film festivals throughout the U.S., as well as at PASIC in 2001. Their scores for the iconic films Nosferatu (1922) and Salome (1923) are available on DVD; and the album, Poe: A Dream Within a Dream, was released in 2021.
Working with playwright/actor David Kessler, he created and performed music for two live multi-media theater productions during the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC.
O’Meara has performed with Kwo’m Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, One Earth Percussion Theatre, the Contemporary Music Forum, the National Symphony Orchestra, and as a soloist, with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and The Women Composer’s Orchestra. Thanks to the influence of his son, Kevin O’Meara, he has played with Dan Deacon and appears on Deacon's albums Bromst, America, and the soundtrack for Well Groomed.
He is an active member of the experimental music scene, and has produced three albums with Colla Parte, a quartet that creates music in the moment.
Rich and his wife, Patsy, currently live in Bethel, Connecticut with their extended family and three dogs.
https://richomeara.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/richomeara/
http://youtube.com/madeinmarimba
Sheet Music at Edition Svitzer