music.wikisort.org - Composer

Harold Mujahid O'Neal FRSA (born 27 March 1981) is an American producer, pianist, composer, public speaker, storyteller, and social entrepreneur. While mainly associated with the legacy of jazz pianists, he has worked with artists in a variety of musical genres (U2, Kelly Rowland, Bob Geldof, Akon, Melissa Etheridge, Lupe Fiasco, Busta Rhymes, Damien Rice, Estelle Aloe Blacc, Jay Z). O'Neal has been profiled and featured in numerous publications and programs including Forbes,[1] NPR's All Things Considered,[2] Fortune,[3] Studio 360,[4] and the 92Y,[5] with The New York Times[6] comparing him to Duke Ellington, Kenny Kirkland, and Maurice Ravel. He is considered to be of this generation's greatest pianists and composers. O'Neal has been awarded fellowship to the Royal Society of the Arts, with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a patron, and recently played a role as a creative expert for the Academy Award winning Pixar film, Soul.

Harold O'Neal
O'Neal at TEDxMontreal 2013
Background information
Birth name	Harold Mujahid O'Neal
Born	(1981-03-27) 27 March 1981 (age 41) Arusha, Tanzania
Genres	Film score, Jazz, Classical, Hip Hop, Pop, R and B, Rock
Instrument(s)	Piano, keyboard, synthesizer, drums, percussion
Years active	1998–present
Labels	Universal Music Group
Website	pianocinema.com

Early life

Harold O'Neal was born in Arusha, Tanzania, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His great-grandfather, Ollie Harold Pennington, was a jazz pianist and composer for silent film in Kansas City, where his grandmother walked to school with Charlie Parker. O'Neal began playing the piano by ear at age four on his father's miniature keyboard. He found his earliest inspirations in the music of Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, and Disney. While growing up, he spent a considerable amount of time with his grandmother exploring various creative outlets, before eventually becoming a pianist. Having spent much of his youth living in the projects (Public Housing) and surviving near-death experiences, he credits music with saving his life. O'Neal attended the Paseo Academy Of Fine And Performing Arts, with classmates Logan Richardson, Lil' Ronnie, and Brian Kennedy, where he began his jazz piano studies while being mentored by Ahmad Alaadeen. He studied classical piano and composition with Margie Cameron-Jarrett, whose musical lineage can be traced back to Franz Liszt.

Career

O'Neal began working with musical luminaries from a young age – touring with Bobby Watson when he was 19 after studying composition at the Berklee College of Music. He then went on to the Manhattan School of Music, to study with Kenny Barron. It was there where he met the great American jazz pianist and composer, Andrew Hill, with whom he soon became the apprentice of. Mr. Hill was an apprentice of prolific composer Paul Hindemith. Following Andrew Hill's advice, O'Neal left the Manhattan School of Music to replace pianist Jason Moran in the influential band, the Greg Osby 4, making his major-label debut recording for Blue Note Records[7] at the age of 21. In 2004, O'Neal premiered a jazz quartet featuring Greg Osby, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and Matt Brewer.

In the following years, O'Neal released a number of critically acclaimed albums including -- "Charlie's Suite" (2006), which was a compilation of his family's legacy, "Whirling Mantis" (2010) with a jazz quartet, and a solo piano album "Marvelous Fantasy" (2011) on Smalls Records. He then partnered with Ski Beats and Damon Dash, after being signed to Universal Music Group as a songwriter and producer, to release the albums 24 Hour Karate School 2 (2011), Twilight (2012), and Cam'Ron And Vado's Blu Tops (2012). In 2012, O'Neal formed a partnership with producers Lil Ronnie and Jerry Wonda working with many Pop and R&B artists (Miguel, Akon, Melissa Ethridge, Raphael Saadiq, French Montana). In 2013, he released the album "Man on the Street" featuring a jazz quartet as well as solo piano for BluRoc, an at the time incarnation of Rocafella Records distributed by Def Jam Records.

O'Neal worked as a composer for a featurette and the documentaries of the 2015 Disney film Tomorrowland produced by Academy Award winning filmmaker Anthony Giacchino, which starred George Clooney and Britt Robertson. The film was directed by Brad Bird with the film-score being composed by Michael Giacchino. His solo piano album "Piano Cinema" was released in May 2018, with "Sam and Sam" serving as the lead single. Following the album release, O'Neal completed a spring tour across the U.S. with The Blk Shp with Pixar as a partner. Recently, from the recommendation of Ed Catmull, O'Neal played a role with the filmmakers (Pete Docter, Dana Murray, Kemp Powers) as a creative expert in the development of Pixar's Soul.

As a keynote speaker and Social Entrepreneur, O'Neal has been featured at Google, The World Economic Forum, TEDX, Hatch Experience, C2 Montréal, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other leading platforms. Currently, he has a multitude of projects in development, including producing his next jazz album (2023), producing and scoring an untitled feature length film with an Academy Award winning director (2024), and founding a global social entrepreneurship initiative with Paul Propster, Chief Strategist and Story Architect of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Film and television

In 2009, O'Neal appeared as an actor in Jay Z's music video for the hit record Young Forever, from his multi-platinum album The Blueprint 3. In 2010, he was cast in the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire, portraying James P. Johnson. He was also featured in MTV's Sucker Free.

Credits

Film scoring

Year	Title	Director	Production Company
2015	Tomorrowland (Additional Music)	Brad Bird	Walt Disney Pictures
2015	Tanu Weds Manu Returns (Old School Girl)	Anand L. Rai	Colour Yellow Pictures
2015	Loisaidas (Episode 6)	Damon Dash Exec. Prod. Kanye West	Damon Dash Studios

Albums

Year	Artist	Title	Label
2018	Harold O'Neal	Piano Cinema	Piano Cinema Music
2013	Harold O'Neal	Man on the Street	Universal Music Group
2012	Cam'Ron And Vado	BluTops	Universal Music Group
2012	Ski Beatz	24 Hour Karate School Presents: Twilight	Universal Music Group
2011	Ski Beatz	24 Hour Karate School 2	Universal Music Group
2011	Harold O'Neal	Marvelous Fantasy	Smalls Records
2010	Harold O'Neal	Whirling Mantis	Smalls Records
2007	Harold O'Neal	Charlie's Suite	PME Records

Miscellaneous

• He is the nephew of Pete O'Neal, a former leader of the Black Panther Party
• He holds a black belt in kenpo karate, having spent significant time competing as a full contact kickboxer
• O'Neal's cousin is Emanuel Cleaver, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives
• He is a member of the legendary breakdance crew, the Dynamic Rockers.
• O'Neal is a polymath.

References

External links

• Official Site

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