Simon O’Reilly is an instrumentalist, composer, music producer and sound designer living in Co. Clare, Ireland. His most recent work, documentary feature film The Summit, on which he created the sound design and additional orchestral score has just been announced as the only Irish entrant in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival 2013. On the back of this and other recent success’s Simon has now launched a crowd funding campaign to help him to complete his new album Edge of the Earth. This is an album he describes as ‘a labour of love which will infuse all his influences and learning of his art since a young child’.
Simon had a nomadic childhood growing in Australia, Holland, Ireland, England – all of which exposed him to a wealth of music from different cultures. He began playing the guitar while hanging around Jazz cafes in Holland in his early teens and from this developed a love of producing, recording music and sound. After recording and performing in the vibrant Dublin music scenes late 1990’s he eventually turned his ear to his own musical heritage and moved to Co. Clare in the west of Ireland. His decision to immerse himself in traditional Irish music proved highly successful and within a couple of years he had written and produced with Davy Spillane, Luka Bloom, Kila and The Monks of Glenstal amongst many others. In 2008 after renovating a 200 year old farmhouse and turning it into a purpose built ‘state of the art’ recording studio, Simon decided to concentrate his energies on scoring for film. His first score was for the legendary George Morrison and since then he has worked on 13 soundtracks including Little Matador (Film 4), documentaries for RTE and TG4 and the multi-award winning Wave Riders – and along with this he has also composed and produced numerous television advertisement campaigns for international ad agencies.
In recent times, to complement his scoring and producing Simon has expanded his expertise into the area of sound design and the art of creating atmospheres and sound effects in film. His first work, the internet sensation Dark Side of the Lens, won the Vimeo Sports Film of the Year 2012, and this along with the announcement that The Summit will compete at the 2013 Sundance film festival has cemented Simon as one of the top and most innovative sound designers and composer’s in the country. Nick Ryan, the director of The Summit has huge praise for Simon’s work on his film ‘it was the creation of Simon’s unique sound design and effects that could not be achieved on location that made many of the more harrowing scenes work at the level we needed them…..this and the additional scoring of some of the larger orchestral scenes in the film by Simon were crucial elements to the success of the finished product’.
Simon is currently looking for people to check out his new project, Edge of the Earth on fundit.ie where they can get signed copies or even free studio time by contributing toward the cost of the completion of his much anticipated new album.
