Grace O’Connell
Grace O’Connell is a musician with equal passions for solo and orchestral playing, chamber music, and teaching. She has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and The Knights, and is a frequent addition to orchestral trumpet sections in the Nashville Symphony, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, Greenwich Symphony, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and others. This past summer, she performed as guest principal trumpet at the New Hampshire Music Festival and as a guest artist with the Manchester Music Festival.
Always a dynamic soloist, Grace is an active recitalist and competitor in national and international competitions. Most recently, she was named the first-place winner of the Roger Voisin Memorial Trumpet Competition (2024) and was a finalist in the Ellsworth Smith International Trumpet Solo Competition. She was also named the first-place winner in the International Trumpet Guild Solo Performance Division (2023), MTNA Young Artist Solo Division (2022), and the National Trumpet Competition Undergraduate Division (2022). She has been a featured soloist with the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra, Southern Stars Symphonic Brass Band, and Middle Tennessee Sinfonietta. In 2021 and 2023, Grace was the recipient of two separate URECA Grants from Middle Tennessee State University, aiding her in completing several solo trumpet recordings for digital release. Grace holds a master’s degree from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree from Middle Tennessee State University. She has studied with John Aley, Kevin Cobb, and Michael Arndt.
As part of her fellowship with Ensemble Connect, Grace teaches at PS 130 The Parkside School in Brooklyn.
