Isabelle O’Connell
Described by the New York Times as ‘one of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s
contemporary-classical scene’ Franco-Irish pianist Isabelle O’Connell’s international career
as soloist and chamber musician has taken her around the United States, Canada, Japan,
Australia, New Zealand and Europe, to venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the
Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute,
the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Die Stadthalle Wuppertal, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the
National Concert Hall, Ireland.
Isabelle has a reputation for being a dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of 20th
and 21st century composers, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. She has
worked with some of the leading composers of our time including John Adams, Meredith
Monk, John Luther Adams, Eve Beglarian, Donnacha Dennehy, Michael Gordon, Georg
Friedrich Haas, Missy Mazzoli, Joan Tower, Kevin Volans and Julia Wolfe. Her debut solo
album RESERVOIR featured solo piano music by nine contemporary Irish composers and
was released to critical acclaim in 2010 with the New Yorker calling her ‘the young Irish
piano phenom’.
Isabelle has been the recipient of numerous awards including a 2025 Fulbright Alumni
Projects Award, Clifford-Levy grant, John F. Kennedy scholarship, and various awards from
Culture Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland. She currently serves as
Artist-in-Residence at Bard College, New York.
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