Bridget O'Donnell
Australian violinist Bridget O’Donnell is enjoying a varied career as a chamber and orchestral musician in the classical and folk scene. Firmly established in London, Bridget regularly performs and tours with the London Symphony Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Manchester Collective and a variety of exceptional folk and jazz musicians. She has given performances in venues across Europe including the BBC Proms, the Elbphilharmonie and Paris Philharmonie.
Passionate about blending the multiple genres of music she plays, Bridget co-directs the ‘Songs for the Earth’ group with jazz-bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado which fuses folk, jazz and classical music together highlighting the human connection with nature. With recent sell-out performances at the Jago and appearances on BBC6, they will perform with their group at the North York Moors Festival among others as well as working with Sinfonia Cymru in 2024. Bridget also regularly records and works with trail-blazing cross-genre musicians such as Rahki Singh and Abel Selacoe, Max Bailie, Nessi Gomes, Sam Lee, Lotte Betts-Dean, and Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler.
Alongside this work, Bridget is an avid classical chamber musician, founding the acclaimed Hill Quartet and during her time with them appeared at the West Cork, North York and Kings Lynn festivals as well as undertaking residencies for Britten Pears Arts. Whilst Chamber Music Fellows at the Royal Academy of Music, they recorded Mullov-Abbado’s EP ‘Three Road Songs’ with clarinettist Ben Mellefont, which was released on the October House Records label in 2022.
The winner of the Marten Bequest Award in music, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Levon Chilingirian and was awarded an MA with Distinction in 2020. Whilst studying, she organised the Australian Bushfire Benefit Concert with Lotte Betts-Dean and also led the RAM Chamber and Symphony Orchestras and was awarded the RAM Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Prize for services in performance.
Bridget performs on an 1890 Leandro Bisiach violin that was used by Russell Crowe in the film Master & Commander, generously on loan to her from private donors, as well as a John Dodd bow on loan through the Beares International Violin Society.
