Heather O'Donnell is an American classical

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

living in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Life

O'Donnell was born in Summit, New Jersey in 1973. She began studying piano at the age of five, her most influential teachers were Charles Milgrim, Stephen Drury and

Peter Serkin Peter Adolf Serkin (July 24, 1947 – February 1, 2020) was an American classical pianist. He won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966, and he performed globally, known for not only "technically pristine" pl ...

. She also worked closely with

Yvonne Loriod Yvonne Louise Georgette Loriod-Messiaen (; 20 January 1924 – 17 May 2010) was a French pianist, teacher, and composer, and the second wife of composer Olivier Messiaen. Her sister was the Ondes Martenot player Jeanne Loriod. Biography Loriod ...

Emanuel Ax Emanuel "Manny" Ax (born 8 June 1949) is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is a teacher in the Juilliard School. Early life Ax was born to a Polish-Jewish family in Lviv, Ukraine, (in what was then the Soviet Union) to Joachim and ...

, and

Claude Helffer Claude Helffer (18 June 1922 – 27 October 2004) was a French pianist. Early life Helffer was born in Paris, and began piano lessons at the age of five and from the age of ten until the outbreak of World War II he studied with Robert Casa ...

. O'Donnell studied at

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Hu ...

and

Mannes College of Music Mannes School of Music is a music conservatory in The New School, a private research university in New York City. In the fall of 2015, Mannes moved from its previous location on Manhattan's Upper West Side to join the rest of the New School cam ...

, and took several courses in Philosophy and Literature at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and was the teaching assistant of philosopher Paul Edwards at the New School for Social Research.

Career

O'Donnell plays works from the 18th-21st century, e.g.

J.S. Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the ''Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suite ...

Goldberg Variations The ''Goldberg Variations'', BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have ...

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...

's-

Concord Sonata The Piano Sonata No. 2, ''Concord, Mass., 1840–60'' (commonly known as the ''Concord Sonata'') is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts ar ...

, and

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

Gaspard de la Nuit ''Gaspard de la nuit'' (subtitled ''Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand''), M. 55 is a suite of piano pieces by Maurice Ravel, written in 1908. It has three movements, each based on a poem or ''fantaisie'' from the collection '' ...

). She gave premieres of solo piano works (including pieces by

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

Walter Zimmermann Walter Zimmermann (born 15 April 1949) is a German composer associated with the Cologne School. Born in Schwabach, Germany, Zimmermann studied composition in Germany with Werner Heider and Mauricio Kagel, the theory of musical intelligence at ...

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...

Michael Finnissy Michael Peter Finnissy (born 17 March 1946) is an English composer, pianist, and pedagogue. An immensely prolific composer, his music is "notable for its dramatic urgency and expressive immediacy". Although he rejects the label, he is often r ...

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social an ...

, and

Oliver Schneller Oliver Martin Schneller (born 26 March 1966 in Cologne) is a German composer and saxophonist. Life Schneller grew up in Ireland, Sudan, Belgium and the Philippines. After completing a MA in musicology, political science and history at the Universi ...

). She has a strong affinity for the music of American composer

, and has played and recorded his piano works extensively. She was the artistic director of commissioning projects including "Responses to Ives" and "Piano optophonique". Since 2015, O'Donnell has been active as a psychologist (B.Sc. Psychology, M.Sc. Prevention and Health Psychology) and works with musicians and other performing artists on psychological blockages, injury prevention and rehabilitation, and other health-related issues. In 2020 she founded The Green Room in Cologne, Germany.

References

External links

Heather O'Donnell's website

TGR The Green Room

Program
at Berliner Festspiele's

MaerzMusik MaerzMusik is a festival of the Berliner Festspiele and has been held annually since 2002 in March at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and other venues. It is the successor festival to the Musik-Biennale Berlin and is considered one of the most im ...

Festival {{DEFAULTSORT:Odonnell, Heather American classical pianists American women classical pianists 1973 births Living people Columbia University alumni Musicians from New Jersey The New School alumni The New School faculty 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century classical pianists 21st-century American pianists American women academics