Dustin O'Halloran

Dustin J. O'Halloran (born 8 September 1971) is an American pianist and composer.

A self-taught pianist from the age of 7, O’Halloran has lived in Los Angeles, where he studied art at Santa Monica College and formed Devics with Sara Lov. He has also lived in Romagna, Italy, and in Berlin.

Having gained serious recognition and critical acclaim for his studio albums and live performances, O'Halloran has become a recognizable name in “post-classical” field; a definition of the genre rather than vice-versa. Now sitting alongside peers and friends Max Richter, Hauschka and Jóhann Jóhannsson (who, incidentally, aided O'Halloran in mixing his newest album) on FatCat’s dedicated orchestral imprint 130701, 2011’s Lumiere album is a glowing addition to O’Halloran’s musical canon, at once an central point of everything that his music has been leading up to, and an unexpected step forwards in terms of timbral palette and harmony. Featuring NYC’s ACME Quartet, Stars Of The Lid’s (SOTL) Adam Wiltzie and prodigious young composer Peter Broderick among the guest musicians, the scale of Lumiere is expansive: “it made me realize how important it is to find players that truly understand what you do and to create a language with them,” writes O'Halloran.

O'Halloran’s stunning score to Sofia Coppola’s 2005 film Marie Antoinette also earned him a tentative step into soundtrack work, which has since bloomed into a reputable and highly creative path of film composition. Having subsequently scored William Olsen’s An American Affair (2010) and Drake Doremus’ Sundance-winning Like Crazy (2011), O'Halloran’s more recent film projects are numerous and varied: Now Is Good (Ol Parker, 2012), a British-American production starring Dakota Fanning, Olivia Williamson, Paddy Consadine and Jeremy Irvine; The Other Dream Team (Marius Markevicius, 2012) – an astonishing documentary on Lithuania’s 1992 Olympic basketball team and their tacet resistance to Soviet rule; Breathe In (2013), Drake Doremus’ latest feature starring Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce; and most recently, O'Halloran and SOTL’s Adam Wiltzie scored the music for London Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor’s newest full-length contemporary dance production, Atomos.

O'Halloran’s rock background - primarily with Bella Union’s “dream-pop” outfit Devics – has yielded an unassuming, perceptive approach to composing modern classical pieces. Inspired by, among others, Arvo Part, Philip Glass, Hans Otte, John Luther Adams, Olivier Messiaen, Ennio Morricone, Gavin Bryars, there is no lack of articulation or academic musicality in O'Halloran’s work, but there is also none of the aloofness or detachment that is so readily perceived around contemporary classical music. This can perhaps be attributed to the environments in which O'Halloran has worked - Lumiere is full of those rare elements of life shared by both vibrant cities and lush countrysides: colour, both organic and rich, sensorial intrigue and a deep awareness of space. Or perhaps it is a product of O'Halloran's synaesthesia, a condition he first noticed around the time of his performance at New York's Guggenheim Museum for their Kandisnky retrospective and 50th anniversary gala. Able to visualize his compositions as vividly as a painter might see his own work, O'Halloran's expressiveness is beyond compare.

Lumiere - O'Halloran's third solo full-length – follows two Bella Union albums released in 2004 and 2006 respectively (Piano Solos Vol. 1 and Piano Solos Vol. 2). These two records were originally opportunity for O'Halloran to express a creative streak unexplored by Devics songwriting: gently and privately pieced together piano suites written and recorded on a beautifully restored 1920s Sabel piano in his Italian farmhouse. The compositions, however, gradually grew into fully formed solo pieces as O'Halloran's ambitions and designs developed. The path, of course, would eventually lead him to Lumiere’s majestic, swooning ensemble arrangements and a focus-shift away from the piano as his work’s primary timbre without losing any of the affection for the instrument that bore his first two records. A sublime solo live album - entitled Vorleben – was released by FatCat / 130701 in June, a hushed and reverent study of purity and stillness.

2011 also saw the release of A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Erased Tapes), the self-titled debut LP from a new musical project: a collaboration with Adam Wiltzie that builds on their production work together (Wiltzie played in important role in the sound design and engineering work on Lumiere) and respective musical histories to deliver truly jaw-dropping results. Widely celebrated across the critical board, A Winged Victory For The Sullen are quickly becoming a vital live act and a further accomplishment (of no small scale) in O'Halloran’s personal list.

Discography

Solo albums

• Piano Solos (Splinter, 2004 — writer, producer)
• Piano Solos Vol. 2 (Filter/Splinter, 2006 — writer, producer)
• Vorleben (Sonic Pieces, 2010 — writer, producer)
• Lumiere (Fat Cat, 2011 — writer, producer)

With Devics

• If You Forget Me (Bella Union, 1998 — writer, co-producer)
• My Beautiful Sinking Ship (Bella Union, 2001 — writer, co-producer)
• The Stars at St. Andrea (Bella Union, 2003 — writer, producer)
• Push the Heart (Filter, 2006 — writer, producer)

Film scores and soundtracks

• One Last Score (1999 — original song)
• Viva Las Nowhere (2001 — song)
• L'Amore Probabilmente (2001 — songs)
• Easy Six (2003 — song)
• Stranger Than Fiction (2006 — performer)
• Marie Antoinette (2006 — original score)
• Remember the Daze (2008 — original score)
• An American Affair (2008 — original score w/soundtrack release)
• Like Crazy (2011 — original score w/soundtrack release)
• The Other Dream Team (2012 — original score)
• Now Is Good (2012 — original score w/soundtrack release)
• The Beauty Inside (2012 — original score w/soundtrack release)
• Breathe In (2013 — original score)

References

External links

• Dustin O'Halloran at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• psychoPEDIA interview