Cormac McCarthy (piano, compositions) with Davie Ryan (Drums), Eoin Walsh (Bass), Maria Ryan (Fiddle), Lucia MacPartlin (Fiddle)

Cormac McCarthy is a composer, arranger and pianist born in Cork, Ireland. He began studying piano aged four, and soon after discovered the joy of composition. He has gone on to perform and compose in a wide range of musical genres, from classical to jazz to Irish traditional music.   In 2010 Cormac received the prestigious Bill Whelan International Music Bursary from Bill Whelan, an award earmarked for young Irish composers studying abroad. He spent a number of years living in Chicago, where he completed a Masters in Jazz Studies at DePaul University. Such jazz icons as Phil Woods and Jeff Hamilton have recorded his compositions and arrangements. As a pianist, he has performed extensively at concert venues, clubs and festivals throughout Europe and the US, recording and performing with artists across numerous genres, including Peter Washington, Billy Drummond, Liz Carroll, Tony Miceli, Padraig Rynne, Stan Sulzmann. Cormac’s most recent project, Cottage Evolution centres on music he has written for a 12-piece ensemble, and features musicians from an interesting and diverse blend of musical backgrounds. The project’s debut album has recently been released on the LYTE Records label to widespread acclaim.  He is also a member of the forward-thinking Irish traditional group NOTIFY, whose new album InConcept was released on Ropeadope Records in March 2016. Cormac lectures in piano, keyboard, arranging and composition at the CIT Cork School of Music, and is director of the Cork School of Music Jazz Big Band.

The Irish tradition has been strangely resistant to infection by the jazz virus. With a few notable exceptions, no jazz musician has ever really managed to draw together Irish traditional music and the African-American improvisatory tradition in any kind of sustained way. The influence of the American mid-west is also audible in the young composer’s sweepingly cinematic tunes, and there are distinct echoes of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, but this creditable debut suggests that a younger generation may be finding their own path to the Irish traditional waterfall.