Jim Reilly, Minneapolis-based pianist, tenor, composer, and vocal coach, was born in 1943 in Newark, New Jersey, Reilly has played a significant role in the Twin Cities music scene, contributing to both religious and secular music.

In the 1980s, he served as Director of Music at the First Universalist Church in Minneapolis where he composed the  hymn "A Core of Silence", now in Unitarian hymnals in the U.S., Britain, and the Czech Republic.  Later, he became Music Director at Mindekirken, our area’s only surviving Norwegian language church, where he is now Music Director Emeritus.

Reilly performs Nordic music widely and collaborates with cultural institutions such as the American Swedish Institute and the Alliance Française. He strives to live an international life in Minneapolis, and recently was a guest playing Haitian piano music for Afoutayi, and wrote a new bilingual Norwegian/English liturgy for the 2024 Leiv Eriksson International Festival.