Stephen O’MALLEY is a musician, composer, curator, and visual artist based in Paris, France.
O’Malley’s oeuvre defines a breadth of multidisciplinary interests involving music vectored by experimental approaches, physicality through dynamics and amplification, and explorations of thresholds via sound’s materiality and plasticity.
O’Malley is a frequent collaborator in various formations, in projects inside and out of the concert, exhibition, gallery and studio settings. Including significant projects with Greg Anderson (co-founder of Sunn O))) ), Scott Walker, Merzbow, François J. Bonnet, Randall Dunn, Oren Ambarchi, Attila Csihar, Jim O’Rourke, Kali Malone, Keiji Haino, Mats Gustaffson, James Plotkin, Thurston Moore, Attila Csihar, Peter Rehberg, Anthony Pateras. He is a founding member of the bands Thorr’s Hammer (1993), Burning Witch (1995), Sunn O))) (1998), Khanate (2000), KTL (2005), Nazoranai (2011), ÄÄNIPÄÄ (2011) and others.
He has worked extensively in creation dialogues with : the French choreographer and theater director Gisèle Vienne since 2007 ; the authors Dennis Cooper & Alan Moore ; contemporary composers Iancu Dumitrescu, Anna-Maria Avram, Johann Johannson, Eyvind Kang and Alvin Lucier ; Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov ; American sculptor Banks Violette ; Japanese sculptor Fujiko Nakaya & the Japanese collective dumbtype ; Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai ; Swiss artists Emily Ding & Swiss arts collective KLAT (led by Jerome Massard); Italian performance artist Nico Vascellari ; French photographer Estelle Hanania ; Luxembourg’s filmmaker artists Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert ; American filmmakers Jim Jarmusch & Panos Cosmatos ; fashion designer Rick Owens ; Belgian filmmaker Alexis Destoop ; he has worked at electronic music institutions IRCAM (Paris), INA-GRM (Paris), EMS (Stockholm), and others.
O’Malley composes for ensembles of various sizes. Including the pieces 6°F (2009), Géante4 (2010), Gruidés (for 30 piece orchestra, 2015) & Un Vide dans le Ciel (80 piece orchestra, 2016), Niagara Reverb (for alphorn ensemble & electronics, 2017), Avaeken (for electric guitar quartet, 2020), Numbers (for voice & electronics, 2021), Les Sphères (effondrez-les) (for percussion ensemble, 2022).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .