The Grammy® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor is one of the most compelling vocal artists of her generation. She is known for a commanding intensity on stage, a velvet vocal tone, and the ability to create sheer magic in her interpretations. O’Connor performs and inhabits a broad selection of repertoire, from Beethoven, Mahler and Brahms to Dessner, Corigliano and Adams; she is sought after by many of today’s most accomplished composers. She performs with leading orchestras and conductors around the world, with preeminent artists in recitals and chamber music, and with highly acclaimed opera companies in the U.S. and abroad.
In the 2026–2027 season, O’Connor gives the world premiere of a new song cycle by Gonzalo Grau with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel. She sings Beethoven 9 with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and Baltimore and Pacific Symphonies. Other highlights include Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Kalamazoo Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with the New Jersey Symphony; Bernstein’s Songfest with the Kansas City Symphony; Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with the Fort Worth Symphony; John Adams’ El Niño with Gulbenkian Orchestra; and two performances of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder in Spain with Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero. Chamber and recital highlights include performances at Chamber Music Napa, Chamber Music in the Chilterns, and Garth Newel.
Recently, O’Connor premiered an extended version of Thomas Adès’s America (A Prophecy) in her debut with the Gewandhausorchester under Andris Nelsons; gave the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Siddhartha, She at the Aspen Music Festival; performed Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra and his Third Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony; John Adams’s El Niño with the Houston Symphony; and a gala performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.
In demand by many of the most heralded composers of the modern day, Kelley O’Connor has recently premiered works by John Corigliano, Kareem Roustom, Joby Talbot, and Bryce Dessner. John Adams wrote the title role of The Gospel According to the Other Mary for O’Connor and she has performed the work, both in concert and in the Peter Sellars fully staged production, under the batons of John Adams, Gustavo Dudamel, Grant Gershon, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, and David Robertson. She continues to be the eminent living interpreter of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, having performed this moving set of songs with orchestras around the world. She also created the role of Federico García Lorca in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, for which she has received unanimous critical acclaim.
Operatic highlights include her Seattle Opera debut as Anna in a concert version of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, the title role of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia presented by Boston Lyric Opera in a new production by Broadway theater director Sarna Lapine, Carmen with Los Angeles Opera, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madama Butterfly in a new production by Lillian Groag at the Boston Lyric Opera and at the Cincinnati Opera, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict at Opera Boston, Falstaff with the Santa Fe Opera, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Canadian Opera Company.
For her debut with the Atlanta Symphony in Ainadamar, Kelley O’Connor joined Robert Spano for performances and a Grammy® Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording. Her recording catalogue also includes Mahler’s Third Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and Michael Kurth’s Everything Lasts Forever with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra. O'Connor's newest recording, a collaboration with pianist and composer Robert Spano, is “Songs of Orpheus,” a series of song cycles by Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, George Crumb, and Spano himself, on Sono Luminus (August 2025).
JUNE 2026. AT THE REQUEST OF THE ARTIST – PLEASE DO NOT ALTER THIS BIOGRAPHY
PLEASE DESTROY ALL PREVIOUSLY DATED MATERIALS