About Isabelle O’Connell
Email: ioconnel@bard.edu
Website: https://www.isabelleoconnell.com
Since her Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2002, pianist Isabelle O’Connell has developed an international career as soloist and chamber musician that has taken her around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, to venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the National Concert Hall, Ireland.
Isabelle is co-founder of Grand Band, a piano sextet described by the New York Times as: ”six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene”. Isabelle has performed as concerto soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. She has also performed with Crash ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Da Capo Chamber Players, the ConTempo and New Zealand String Quartets and is a member of the Friends of MATA ensemble.
Composers she has worked with include John Adams, John Luther Adams, Morton Subotnick, Meredith Monk, Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, Kevin Volans, Donnacha Dennehy, Dan Trueman, Bunita Marcus, amongst many others.
Isabelle has recorded for the Diatribe, Innova and Lyric fm labels. Her debut solo album RESERVOIR released in 2010 features solo piano music by nine contemporary Irish composers and for this The New Yorker hailed her as ”the young Irish piano phenom”. She recorded Kevin Volans’ Concerto for Piano and Winds with the RTE NSO in 2014.
A Fulbright scholar, Isabelle holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She is currently on the piano faculty at Bard College, NY.