Connor O’Neill
’17
Be intentional about how you manifest the reality of your vision, be intentional about what your work means to you and what it should mean to others. Understanding the value of your art and taking tangible steps to land your art in the right places are the most important ways to not only advance your career as an artist, but to help connect your art with people who understand and care about it.
Connor O’Neill is a guitarist, composer, and producer who is at the forefront of Philadelphia’s burgeoning creative music scene. His music—modern, reflective, and often soft-spoken—is inspired by nature, personal experiences, and life in the modern world. The stories told in his music aim to provide the listener with a sense of purpose and direction, and to create a space to return to in times of doubt. O’Neill’s latest album, The Same Changes, Vol II, released in late 2023. Like the Same Changes, Vol I, this album is a collection of stories, experiences, and reflections manifested as moments in time. However, Vol II gives the listener a chance to connect specifically with experiences in O'Neill's life that have tested him; moments of depression, doubt, and insecurity.
His video for the song “Jessica” was featured on NPR Music’s Live Sessions video series that summer. O’Neill was a member of Jazz Philadelphia's first Core Cooperative, an entrepreneurship and wellness program focused on nurturing new artists in the Philadelphia jazz scene. O’Neill engineered Mervin Toussaint’s album Lakay, as well as Lora Sherrodd’s album Lora Sings Markley, which were both released in the Fall of 2022. He was featured on Toussaint’s 2020 EP, Another Name for Everything, as a guitarist, producer and sole mixing/mastering engineer. O’Neill has privately taught guitar, music theory, jazz history, improvisation, and musicianship since 2014.