Katharine O'Connell writes music that is at once intensely lyrical and rhythmically complex, rigorous in form and narrative in style. She has written extensively for voice, chamber ensemble, and orchestra, and her works have been performed throughout the United States and in England.

Katharine's music often incorporates her interest in the natural world.   Her piece, Wing, for two violins (also arranged for two saxophones), is inspired by the movements of birds' wings.  Streams, a nonet for flute choir, explores the rhythmic movement of water over stones.  Wave, another work for flutes, also takes water as its subject. 

The sea, its swells and glassy surface, has been a recurring theme in her work.  Two songs for soprano, viola, and piano, Harbor Fog, and 79th Street Boat Basin, with texts by poet F.D. Reeve, center on the calmness and beauty of the ocean in spring, while her orchestral work, Turner Seascapes, takes the British painter's magestic, impressionistic image of the sea as its subject. 

Throughout her career, Katharine has been interested in giving voice to the unheard.  An early work, Requiem, for soprano, trumpet, and organ, took its text from Ecclesiasticus, and was dedicated to victims of homelessness and violence. Recent works include War Elegy, a piece for solo cello, which details the experiences of a soldier returning from war, while Lamentation, for bass/baritone and cello, conveys the desperation of a prisoner in solitary confinement.

Katharine particularly enjoys collaborating with other artists.  She has worked with several poets, including F.D. Reeve, Leonard Trawick, and Anne Stevenson, on settings of their poems, and recently produced a joint work with sculptor Irina Koukhanova on the subject of war.  This work was choreographed and performed in 2011 by Verb Ballets.  She also worked with Darrah Carr, of the Darrah Carr Dance Company, on a five movement ballet for chamber orchestra, Let Something Remain.

Katharine studied composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University (B.M.) before earning a Doctorate in Music Composition at the University of Kentucky. Her work has been recorded by Trio Ariana on the Eroica label and her orchestral work, Turner Seascapes, was read and recorded by the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco, as part of their national search for new composers. Her works include commissions by the New Haven Oratorio Chorale, the Prism Chamber Music Society, and the Black Note Ensemble at the University of Houston. International activities include attendance at the Ennis Opera workshop in Ireland, where her opera excerpt from Waiting for Godot was performed, and a performance at the London Congress of the International Alliance for Women in Music.

She was named the Ohio Music Teachers’ Association Composer of year for 2009. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with her husband, a professor at Cleveland State University, and their two sons.