Jamie O’Reilly

(listen to Jamie (take 2) Song of Bernadette)

Performer, producer, agent, media personality...Many titles in the arts nomenclature can be assigned to Jamie O’Reilly. It is her love of singing, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a fiercely held belief in the value of the artist that fuel her active and vibrant world.

“Jamie not only has the voice of an angel, but possesses an adventurous spirit that allows her to create shows and moments and memories that are real and lasting…
She is a Chicago treasure.”
(Rick Kogan, WGN Radio and Chicago Tribune)

PERFORMER
As one of Chicago’s premiere song stylists, Jamie is known for the lilting cry in her voice and powerful interpretations of ballads and songs for the stage. A rich, aural tradition of singing, learned from her Aunt Dorothy and her mother, contributes to her signature vocal style.  Jamie is an entertainer with broad vocal range and a vibrant connection to her repertoire and her audience.  Her musical tastes and material range from period songs – grand waltzes and parlor songs of the 1890s – to chamber music – to Irish ballads and Andalusian folksongs. She sings steamy cabaret numbers tinged with Latin rhythms, and the songbird repertoire of the ’30 & ’40s.

As a lyricist, she creates original material as well, often with songwriter Michael Smith, who also contributes the musical arrangements to her act. Jamie’s performances blend beauty and sophistication with sincerity and warmth, making her the performer of choice for concerts, radio, galas, special events, and for tributes to individuals of renown.

“O’Reilly’s voice is a shiny, versatile instrument that knows how to caress as well as trumpet.” (Achy Obejas, Chicago Tribune)

A graduate of the DePaul University School of Music, Jamie’s vocal debut was at Orchestra Hall Chicago, in the John McCormick Centenary Concert in 1984. Jamie’s first accompanist was the guitarist Peter Swenson, with whom she first performed at age thirteen!  Listen to their recent rendition of For Bobbie.

Jamie spent a decade as lead singer with the popular eclectic Irish band Jamie O’Reilly & The Rogues: Tom Amandes, Paul Amandes, Stuart Rosenberg, Peter Swenson and John Floeter, which earned her a place in the Chicago folk music scene. In 1984, folk legend Bob Gibson introduced Jamie to Anne Hills and Michael Smith, who would become lifelong friends and collaborators.

Now, nearly three decades since her vocal debut, Jamie still performs as a concert soloist and recording artist. Good fortune that she comes from a mega-talented family, and finds savvy and smart collaborators, allow Jamie to create and present work on a constant basis.Jamie appears in the Jamie O’Reilly Trio with Michael Smith (guitar), Bob Weber (cello) and Peter Swenson (guitar).

One of Jamie’s greatest pleasures is working with – and being a fan of – musical daughters Meg and Nia, and bandmate Sarah Chang, of the band Midnight Moxie.

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MICHAEL SMITH COLLABORATION

“Together their musical palette is pretty astonishing”.
(Chicago Magazine)

In 1994, Jamie began a creative collaboration with Michael Smith, performing and recording songs he wrote and arranged for her. (Swimming Deeper CD). They created a niche for themselves with a popular series of folk-cabarets. The Lunar Cabaret, a performance hot-spot in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, became the launching pad for Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, Hello Dali (with Beau O’Reilly and Jenny Magnus) and Scarlet Confessions (with Paul Amandes and Anne Hills).

In their newest folk-cabaret Songs of a Catholic Childhood, Jamie and Michael  reflect on life in parochial school. The concert features personal stories and musical selections from the soundtrack that accompanied their formative years: Michael’s in the working class Irish/Italian neighborhoods of post-WWII in New Jersey – Jamie’s as one of 14 kids, in the post-Vatican II-Baby Boom era, outside Chicago.

“There’s something about the way you sing and the way he plays that really does connect people with their feelings and intellect, using both right brain and left brain.” (M. Richman, Music Therapy innovator)

 

AGENT
As of 2012, J. O’Reilly Productions now makes artist management a primary focus of its mission. Jamie began representing songwriter Michael Smith in summer of 2011. Presenters across the US and Canada, express deep love and respect for Michael, “one of the best songwriters in the English language”,
whose rich career history spans five decades.
Keep up with them on Reverb Nation.

 

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PRODUCER
As a Theatre Producer, Jamie is known for the powerful productions she brings to the stage, and the projects she brings to the recording studio, among these are Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, (with Katrina O’Reilly), and the award-winning Hello Dali: From the Sublime to the Surreal, a box office hit during the 2001 Victory Gardens Theater’s Tony-Award winning season. Other celebrated programs include Songs of the Kerry Madwoman, which sets the poetry of Patricia Monaghan. The Gift of the Magi holiday show, performed with WGN Radio Host Rick Kogan, is an annual highlight.

SALONNIERE
Jamie hosts soirees and curates the Roots Salon, a century old family tradition of presenting art, music and conversation in an intimate setting. In the summer, Jamie hosts Roots UnderGround Fest, an annual music festival featuring local favorites and a roster of family talent.

MEDIA PRODUCER/WRITER
Jamie is Media Producer of the Songpainting Muse, a Blog, and several FACEBOOK pages. From 2008-2011, she was Creative Director/Communications Director of Women’s Media Group, and produced The Feminist Lens with Maya Friedler. The radio series, Hosted by Marilyn Campbell,  featured women in the arts, and aired on WFMT Fine Arts Radio.  She was also Musical Director of the series.

MORE…Jamie’s body of work tells her story.

Jamie provides development, management
and networking services to artists.


WORKING FOR THE ARTS
For twenty-plus years, the Arts have received the lion’s share of Jamie’s attention. Jamie is a registered Arts Consultant with the Illinois Arts Council. She has developed strong and lasting relationships with prestigious Arts institutions. In the mid ’90s, she was Vice President of The Friends of the Chicago Cultural Center, serving in the role for five years.  She has been the recipient of major arts commissions, and grant awards. In 2010, Jamie was named a Notable Chicagoan by Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan.

“Jamie is especially gifted, with her vibrant voice and a passion for life. (Studs Terkel)

At the start of her career, when she wasn’t performing concerts of Irish songs, Jamie toured the country in Between The Times, a musical about the right to work. This project of Chicago Call to Action was a recipient of the 1987 Social Justice Communications Award from the late Cardinal Bernadin. Touring the United States, and hearing the stories of working people, had lasting impact on Jamie’s life. She has been an activist for social justice for 30 years.

It was while doing a 1986 radio interview about Between The Times, that Jamie first encountered historian and author Studs Terkel. In the late ’90s, the folk-cabaret Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish Civil War, which she created with Michael Smith and Peter Glazer, elicited strong emotion from Chicago’s progressive community.  It also reacquainted her with Studs. Pasiones was a favorite recording of his. They shared the stage on numerous occasions, with the activists and scholars of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, and the Veterans of Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

In time, Jamie would sing many memorials for the “Lincolns.” But it was Annie Laurie, the Scottish ballad, which she sang at the memorial for Studs when he passed away. Studs told Jamie that Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons sang Annie Laurie in his prison cell the night before he died. Studs loved to hear her sing that song!

TEACHER/GUIDE
In the mid ’90s, Jamie developed classes in career development and “Making a Life in the Arts” workshops for the Columbia College Arts Management Department, and was a teaching artist at the Portfolio Center.  Later she taught workshops in business skills for the artist, and singing classes for adults with special needs, at artScape, housed at Gallery 37 in Chicago.  The Artscape program was a collaboration between Harold Washington and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. In 2006, she began providing one-on-one artist development services at her own office, under the auspices of J. O’Reilly Productions.

LISTEN TO RADIO INTERVIEWS

  • -Jamie and Michael Smith perform from Songs of a Catholic Childhood on Rick Kogan’s The Sunday Papers Radio show on WGN.
  • -Oct 2010. Sample Sunday Papers interview with Rick Kogan
  • -A twelve-minute excerpt from the Maxim’ s interview Jamie did with Rick.

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Most of the publicity photos on this site are taken by Iwona Biedermann of dreamboxfoto, unless indicated.

(© Song of Bernadette, written by Leonard Cohen, Jennifer Warnes, William Elliot)
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