Cillian Vallely is an Irish musician, born in Armagh, Northern Ireland. He plays traditional Irish music on the uilleann pipes and low whistle, and studied at the Armagh Pipers Club with his mother and father, Brian and Eithne, and then with the late Armagh piper Mark Donnelly. His brothers, Niall and Caoimhín, also play traditional music.
Since 1999, he has been a member of the band Lúnasa with whom he has recorded seven albums. He has also performed and toured with Riverdance, Natalie Merchant, Tim O'Brien & Mary Chapin-Carpenter in The Crossing, New York-based Whirligig, and the Celtic Jazz Collective with Lewis Nash and Peter Washington. In the past couple of years, he has worked on various collaborations between traditional and classical music, along with his brother Niall and the composer Micheal O’Suilleabhain.
He has recorded on over 40 albums including Callan Bridge with his brother Niall, On Common Ground with Kevin Crawford and various guest spots with Natalie Merchant, Alan Simon’s Excalibur project with Fairport Convention and Moody Blues, GAIA with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and singer Karan Casey. He has recently recorded on two movie soundtracks, Irish Jam and The Golden Boys and played uilleann pipes on the BBC’s Flight of the Earls soundtrack. In January 2014, he played uilleann pipes, low whistle and tin whistle on the Bruce Springsteen album High Hopes, which topped the charts in 14 countries.