Lecturer in Piano

Dr Billy O’Brien enjoys a diverse career which encompasses solo performance, chamber music, contemporary music and teaching. He has appeared as concerto soloist with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Hibernian Orchestra, UCD Symphony Orchestra, RIAM Symphony Orchestra, Wexford Sinfonia and Trinity Orchestra in concertos by Chopin, Ravel, Grieg, Gershwin and Beethoven. He has given solo recitals throughout Ireland in venues such as the Field Room, National Concert Hall, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, as well as in Spain, France, Finland and the UK. He has appeared in concert series and festivals such as the New Ross Piano Festival, New Music Dublin, Kaleidoscope, Music for Wexford, and the Crawford Gallery, among others. In chamber music, Billy has partnered with many of Ireland's leading musicians, and he has collaborated with the Crash, Ficino and Kirkos Ensembles.
Billy has been winner of the Hibernian Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Maura Dowdall Concerto Competition, and the Teissier bursary (RIAM), as well as second prize in the Irish Freemason’s Young Musician of the Year.
In 2023 Billy was awarded a Doctor in Music Performance degree from Trinity College Dublin and the RIAM. Billy’s research focused on questions of aesthetics and performance studies in relation to Maurice Ravel’s five movement suite Miroirs. He has presented his research at conferences both in Ireland and the UK, most recently at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Billy completed two years’ postgraduate study from 2016-2018 in Paris under Rena Shereshevskaya, and he studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin with Hugh Tinney and Thérèse Fahy. A passionate teacher, Billy has taught at TU Dublin Conservatoire and the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and his students have been prize-winners at national and junior international competitions. Billy currently serves as a committee member of the Irish branch of EPTA (European Piano Teachers Association).
Billy is founder and Artistic Director of the Waterford Chamber Music Festival which was launched in summer 2024.