Caitríona’s performing activities in 2010 included a national tour of Australia with The Harp Consort, Possessed, a production which she performed in and created for the Galway Early Music Festival, performances as featured soloist in London, Portsmouth, Bristol and Cambridge for Harvey Brough’s Requiem in Blue. She also performed in a concert with University College Cork’s Gamelan Orchestra and toured throughout Ireland (sponsored by the Arts Council), in a concert titled Ecstasy with her band Dúlra.

As co-artistic director of eX, the Irish-based early music performance company she founded, she has conceived, led and sang in several critically acclaimed works for the stage. These include; Possessed(2010), a work exploring diverse cultural and psychological manifestations of trance and possesion, Shipwrecked (2009), a renaissance cabaret oratorio based on the adventures of a shipwrecked captain from the Spanish Armada, Motion of the Heart (2009), an English masque that celebrated the virtues of the human heart, Songs from a Gothic Room (2009), featuring music of the Ars Nova and Ars Subtiliorwith music direction by the celebrated medievalist Pedro Memelsdorff, The Rape of the Lock,  a baroque spectacle combining a staging of Alexander Pope’s poem interpolated with Handel duets with music director Christopher Hogwood, BAROCK, a staged concert of early German baroque cantatas with Konrad Junghänel, Christ Lag in Todes Banden (2007), a hallucinatory theatricalization of Bach’s first cantata and the sources that inspired it and Ex Tenebris (2006), a dance theatre dream work set to Christmas music of the middle ages and the renaissance.

As a member of the early music ensembles The Harp Consort, Sequentia and Joglaresa, Caitríona has toured throughout North America, Europe, Mexico, Australia and Israel, including such venues as The Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall and Cité de la Musique and has appeared at numerous festivals including, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Festival Cervantino Guanajuato, Festival Interceltique de Lorient.

As a member of these ensembles and others she has made 17 commercial recordings.

She is a featured soloist on four upcoming recordings that will be released internationally in 2012 on Heresy Records.

Her two solo CDs (with her band Dúlra), I am Stretched on Your Grave (BMG Classics/DHM) and Dúil, Irish Songs of Love and Nature (EMI/Virgin Classics) were released to rave reviews in 2000, and 2001, and continue to haunt radio playlists in Ireland and abroad.

While living in New York, Caitríona was a member of Banshee, a collective of Irish women artists whose offbeat performances became a fixture on the downtown scene. After relocating to Dublin, Caitríona wrote and starred in "The Stolen Child", a fully staged musical theatre work, which toured Ireland for over 30 performances.  She also wrote and performed the soundtrack to Emer Martin’s film “Unaccompanied”.

Singer Caitriona O’Leary has a voice free of modern operatic vibrato and projection… [she] created intense and pure sweet notes in Carolan’s Lamentation for his friend MacCabe.

Caitriona O'Leary sang beautifully with lovely folk-like, Gaelic nuances...

“[O’Leary’s] caressing tones…fit seamlessly into a consistent fabric of sound and expression”

The Wall Street Journal

“The gentle tones of Caitríona O’Leary were lovely”

The Boston Globe

“Do not hesitate for a second!  Caitríona O’Leary has one of those incredibly crystalline voices that roots you to the spot”

La Vie.

“It is singing a cappella that Caitríona O’Leary is at her most moving and where she best presents a very rare and very lovely repertoire.”

Le Monde de la Musique

“downright angelic”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“I relished the flavors of the individual voices and characters…the focused calm of Caitríona O’Leary”

Boston Bay Windows

“The clear voice, like a flowing river, and gracious silhouette, of Caitríona O’Leary has also accompanied the ensemble Sequentia and the Harp Consort” Valeurs Actuelles “Spreading a poignant pall over the proceedings, O’Leary’s lamenting voice rose and fell flawlessly, entrancing the audience with heart-wrenching songs.” The Irish Echo  “Vocal grace, majestic formal fluidity, from traditional Irish ballads to early music: a disc (Dúil, Irish Songs of Love and Nature), which unites tradition and sensuality” Geo   “Her singing style, clear articulation, and beautiful soprano voice – with or without accompaniment – are brought to great effect in these and all the songs in Dúil” Irish Music Magazine “Here is a disc (Dúil, Irish Songs of Love and Nature) that revels in the joy of singing and of making music and the joy of being alive” La Marseillaise “Wonderful interpretation by Caitríona O’Leary and her band” Femme Actuelle “[O’Leary] creates an elegiac atmosphere with her clear voice and authentic Gaelic pronunciation” The Plain Dealer“seamless, ethereal sean nós voice”  The Irish Echo

Ludus Danielis: The Play of Daniel

The Harp Consort and Andrew Lawrence-King

1998

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77395 2

Aquitania: Christmas Music from Aquitanian Monasteries

Sequentia (Vox Feminae)

1997

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77383 2

Shining Light: Music from Aquitanian Monasteries (12th Century)

Sequentia (Vox Feminae)

1996

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77370 2

Past Events:

Drumsongs

Tower Theatre

Irish World Academy of Music & Dance

University of Limerick

Wednesday, 13 February, 6.45pm

Join singer Caitríona O’Leary and drummers Mel Mercier, Andrea Piccioni, Francesco Turrisi and Noel Eccles on an exploratory journey through traditional Irish song. Sean nós songs and ballads, straight-up and deconstructed, intertwine with traditional Irish, Italian, Indian and Javanese percussion to give listeners a new and exciting musical experience.

Deirdre O’Leary brings more sonic colours to the tonal palette with her lyrical bass and Bb clarinets, while dancer Michael Cooney adds physical movement to the mix, dancing duets with the voice.

Devised by Caitríona O’Leary, drumsongs is an innovative project that brings together exceptional artists from a variety of musical backgrounds and cultural perspectives to create a unique experience that expands the boundaries of traditional Irish music as it is performed today.

Caitríona O’Leary, voice

Mel Mercier, bodhrán, bones & diverse percussion

Andrea Piccioni, frame drums

Francesco Turrisi, percussion

Noel Eccles, percussion

Deirdre O’Leary, bass & Bb clarinets

Michael Cooney, dance

Made possible by a Deis grant from The Arts Council