Born in 1957; Rich O’Meara is a composer and percussionist. He studied at the Catholic University, among others with Randall Eyles and Garwood Whaley. Coming from rock drumming, he found his way to the marimba, and his compositions for this instrument in particular are performed and recorded worldwide. He has received four ASCAP Plus awards and in 1999 a second prize in the composition contest of the Percussive Arts Society; his music has been heard on NPR’s New Sounds and in the PBS documentary The Music Instinct. With Carlos Garza he founded the Silent Orchestra, which writes and performs new music for silent films, and he has played with ensembles such as Kwo’m Percussion, Sandbox Percussion and the National Symphony Orchestra. On the Cybele album Rolf Hildebrand: Marimba (1995) he is represented with “Wooden Music” for two marimbas, which carries various interval movements into swinging, jazz-like rhythmic episodes.
Rich O’Meara
Composer
