Possessing a voice of uncommon allure, the Grammy Award®-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor is one of the most compelling performers of her generation. She is internationally acclaimed equally in the pillars of the classical music canon—from Beethoven and Mahler to Brahms and Ravel—as she is in new works of modern masters—from Adams and Dessner to Lieberson and Talbot.

John Adams wrote the title role of The Gospel According to the Other Mary for Kelley 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 has sung the composer’s El Niño with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and continues to be the eminent living interpreter of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs having given this moving set of songs with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra, with Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with Robert Spano and the Minnesota Orchestra, among many others.

Sought after by many of the most heralded composers today, O’Connor has given the world premieres of works by John Adams, Jody Talbot, Bryce Dessner, Osvaldo Golijov, Peter Lieberson, and Kareem Roustom, among others. O’Connor has received unanimous international, critical acclaim for her performances as Federico García Lorca in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. O’Connor created the role for the world premiere at Tanglewood, under the baton of Robert Spano, and subsequently joined Miguel Harth-Bedoya for performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in the world premiere of the revised edition of Ainadamar at the Santa Fe Opera in a new staging by Peter Sellars.

Her discography includes a Grammy® Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of Golijov’s Aindamar, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and Michael Kurth’s Everything Lasts Forever with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Third Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.