DR. TARA HELEN O'CONNOR
Tara Helen O’Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique, and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she was the first wind player to participate in the CMS Two program and is now a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, Tara is a regular participant in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, the Banff Centre, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.
A much sought after chamber musician and soloist, she has premiered hundreds of new works and has frequently collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet, the Emerson Quartet, Jaime Laredo, Dawn Upshaw, Eliot Fisk, Jeremy Denk, Ida Kavafian, Peter Serkin and David Shifrin.
Tara is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape and the legendary Bach Aria Group. A passionate advocate of new music, She is a member of the TALEA and Cygnus Ensemble. Tara has appeared on A&E’s “Breakfast for the Arts” and Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Gramophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She has just released a solo CD of American Flute works entitled “The Way Things Go” on Bridge Records with pianist Margaret Kampmeier.
Tara holds a DMA from SUNY Stony Brook were she studied with the late Samuel Baron. Her other teachers include Julius Levine, Thomas Nyfenger, Robert Dick and Keith Underwood. She is Associate Professor of Flute, Area Head of the Wind Department at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music and is the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies. Additionally Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory and the contemporary program at Manhattan School of Music. Her yearly summer flute master class at the Banff Centre in Canada is legendary. Beginning in 2020, she will be a Co-Artistic Director, along with her husband Daniel Phillips, of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico.
A much sought after chamber musician and soloist, she has premiered hundreds of new works and has frequently collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet, the Emerson Quartet, Jaime Laredo, Dawn Upshaw, Eliot Fisk, Jeremy Denk, Ida Kavafian, Peter Serkin and David Shifrin.
Tara is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape and the legendary Bach Aria Group. A passionate advocate of new music, She is a member of the TALEA and Cygnus Ensemble. Tara has appeared on A&E’s “Breakfast for the Arts” and Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Gramophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She has just released a solo CD of American Flute works entitled “The Way Things Go” on Bridge Records with pianist Margaret Kampmeier.
Tara holds a DMA from SUNY Stony Brook were she studied with the late Samuel Baron. Her other teachers include Julius Levine, Thomas Nyfenger, Robert Dick and Keith Underwood. She is Associate Professor of Flute, Area Head of the Wind Department at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music and is the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies. Additionally Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory and the contemporary program at Manhattan School of Music. Her yearly summer flute master class at the Banff Centre in Canada is legendary. Beginning in 2020, she will be a Co-Artistic Director, along with her husband Daniel Phillips, of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico.