Neil Ó Loclainn is a musician and composer from Ballyvaughan, Clare. His work is dedicated to exploring the contemporary and the universal in the local. He has been described as “a musical seeker” (The Irish Times) and his work as “redefining the possibilities of Irish traditional music” (All about Jazz)

He is co founder of Ensemble Ériu, an award winning (TG4 Gradam ComharCeoil award 2015) group dedicated to developing new conceptualisations in Irish traditional ensemble playing.

He leads his own chamber ensemble group Cuar which explores composition and improvisation within the framework of Irish traditional music. Their debut album Roscanna has been described as “an ear craningly beautiful missive from the new post genre frontier.” (The Irish Times)

He began learning Irish traditional music on the flute and tin whistle at a young age and studied double bass with David Whitla at the Cork school of Music. As a jazz musician he has been bassist of choice for many of Ireland’s leading musicians including Myles Drennan, Richie Buckley, Hugh Buckley, Meilana Gillard, Mike Nielsen. He was a member of the Louis Stewart quartet from 2012 until the guitarists death in 2016.

He has studied Karnatic music at the Brhaddvani Institute, Chennai, India and Ewe music at the Dagara Centre, Medie, Ghana. He has won numerous scholarships and bursaries to attend workshops and residencies including the Banff Centre creative music workshop, Canada, the School for Improvisational Music (S.I.M) workshop, New York and the Cill Rialaig residency, Ballinskelligs. His music has been released by Irish labels Raelach and Diatribe Records.