Camille O'Sullivan: Where Are We Now?

Camille O’Sullivan is a singer/actor who enjoys an international reputation for her interpretations of the songs of Nick Cave, Brel, Waits, Bowie, Radiohead, and more. Her headline gigs include Royal Festival Hall, Sydney Opera House, the Apollo, the Roundhouse, Barbican, Kennedy Center, and National Concert Hall with the Symphony Orchestra. She appeared on Later with Jools Holland (BBC), where she was voted “one of the top 25 performances in the history of the program” by the Daily Telegraph.

Previously an award-winning architect and painter, O’Sullivan was born in London and grew up in a village in Cork, Ireland. Chameleon-like on stage, each song has a different character with its story to tell. She is as much a storyteller as a singer, an actress interpreting a monologue.

She's received an Australian Helpmann award and Brighton, Melbourne, and Edinburgh Festival awards for her music shows, as well as a Herald Angel award for her solo acting performance in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Rape of Lucrece, which she and pianist/composer Feargal Murray adapted into a play using original music and songs. She recently received a doctorate degree from the University of East Anglia.

Feargal Murray, pianist, has composed music for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) production of Rape of Lucrece, arranged for the Irish Film Orchestra, Irish Concert Orchestra and the Orchestra of Ireland. He has co-written with Irish songwriter Jimmy Mac Carthy and set music to Pulitzer prize-winning Paul Muldoon’s poetry, and he co-wrote and arranged on Moya Brennan's Grammy-nominated album, Two Horizons.

Murray is the long-time producer/arranger/MD for Camille O'Sullivan and has performed on BBC's Later... with Jools Holland, RTÉ's The Late Late Show and ABC's Good Morning America. Along with Australian songwriter Paul Kelly, Murray wrote music for Ancient Rain, a musical theatre piece nominated for an Australian Helpmann Award in 2017. He also composed music for an adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead, performed by actor Aidan Gillen at London's Globe Theatre and directed by Conor Mc Pherson. Recently, Murray produced and arranged Nicola O’Haire’s debut single, “Orphan Girl,” reaching No. 1 in the Irish iTunes Charts in October 2021. In 2022, he will release an album with Cathy Jordan of Brendan Graham songs, which he also arranged and produced.

Murray has toured extensively, playing such venues as Carnegie Hall with Phil Coulter, Radio City Theatre, the Greek Theatre and Red Rocks with Celtic Woman, the Royal Albert Hall and the Roundhouse with Camille O’Sullivan.

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Paul Byrne is a freelance drummer/percussionist based out of Dublin, Ireland. Byrne’s 35-year musical career began with the Artane Boys Band. After graduating from Artane, Byrne spent two years studying under the late John Wadham. From there he started playing in the local Dublin jazz scene before developing a diverse range of styles, including orchestral music, musical theatre, traditional, folk, pop/rock, jazz, and Latin. Some of the highlights of Byrne’s career include playing Clannad's 2007 reunion concert at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, and their subsequent tour (including TV appearances and recordings); working with Clannad singer Moya Brennan over ten years on numerous tours, including an appearance in front of 2.2 million people for the 2000 jubilee concerts in Rome; and various TV appearances and recordings. Over the last 15 years, Byrne has worked with singer Camille O’Sullivan on many projects, including her 5-star-reviewed Edinburgh Fringe shows (2007-2019) and a six-week run at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End.

Steve Fraser is an experienced guitarist who has worked and performed with Camille O’Sullivan since 2014. His music career, dating to the 1980s, has included nearly 20 years touring and performing with his band The Blackjacks and performances with The George Michael Songbook (a tribute show to the late singer) between 2018-2021; Dirty Harry (an acclaimed Blondie tribute band which supported Bay City Rollers on two UK tours) between 2010-2021; and alternative/indie band The Cathode Ray between 2010-2021. As a guitarist with the band the Scars, he supported the popular British punk band, Siouxsie & the Banshees in Scotland and London. To date, Fraser has performed in about 200 shows with Camille O’Sullivan on tour in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, and has also performed with her on RTÉ television in Ireland, BBC Radio 3 and 4, and appears on the recorded versions of two of Camille’s live shows: Brel (2017) and Cave (2019).

Omar Kabir is a brass player whose associations include David Murray, William Cepeda’s Afrorican Jazz, Morris Goldberg's OJOYO (Safrojazz), Hugh Ragin Trumpet Ensemble, and Ornette Coleman. Has played with the Cecil Taylor Orchestra, Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra, the Jimmy Heath Big Band, the Jimmy Owens Big Band, Liquid Soul, the Groove Collective, and Tabou Combo, and has freelanced with many salsa groups on trumpet and trombone. Kabir was the musical director for Cirque du Soleil for a year and a half in Germany, and was an original cast member of Fame: The Musical.

Jessica Lurie is a multi-instrumentalist performer, composer, producer, and teaching and recording artist. She leads her own ensemble, and co-leads the Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums, Living Daylights, Sofie Salonika, Freethiopiques, and the Slingshot duo. A Sundance Composers’ Fellow and DownBeat’s 2021 “Rising Star for Alto Sax,” Lurie has released eight solo albums, fourteen albums with the Tiptons and five albums with Living Daylights as a member and lead composer, receiving critical acclaim in Billboard, DownBeat, the New York Times, JazzTimes, All About Jazz, Seattle Stranger, LA Weekly, Earshot Jazz, and national and international radio. Recent performances and recordings include artists such as Taylor Mac, John Zorn, Devotchka, Sleater-Kinney, Helen Gillet, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, Henry Butler, Indigo Girls, Marc Ribot, Frank London, Allison Miller, and Nels Cline of Wilco. Her newest release, Long Haul (2018), is out on Chant Records.