Biography
Connor O’Neill is a guitarist, composer, and producer who is at the forefront of Philadelphia’s burgeoning creative music scene. O’Neill’s latest album, The Same Changes, Vol II, was released in August 2023. Its predecessor, The Same Changes, Vol I, was released in April of 2022. The albums feature entirely original compositions and arrangements which paint vivid 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.
He graduated with a master’s degree in jazz studies from the University of the Arts in December 2019. He also received an undergraduate degree from the University of the Arts in 2017, receiving the School of Music Jazz Award, the Catherine T. Quaile Memorial Guitar Award, and the Director’s Award for Academic Achievement that year. O’Neill is a recipient of the Creative PHL’s Illuminate the Arts Grant in 2024 and in 2022. O’Neill was featured as a Jazz Philadelphia artist spotlight as a member of the first Core Cooperative, an entrepreneurship and wellnessprogram focused on nurturing new artists in the Philadelphia jazz scene. In August 2018, Connor was a featured artist, along with vocalist Jessica Cantone, in The Gathering II, an event curated by Philadelphia non-profit Artsi. O’Neill participated in the Kimmel Center Creative Music Program from 2010-2015, in which he composed, improvised, and performed under master musician Anthony Tidd.
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O’Neill has also recorded, mixed, and mastered several albums. In 2024, he engineered Larry Shaw’s Era’s End. 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 mixing/mastering engineer. O’Neill established himself as a skilled and inventive sound engineer with the release of Alex Delcourt’s The French Quarter in 2018.
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O’Neill has privately taught guitar, music theory, jazz history, improvisation, and musicianship since 2014. He currently teaches guitar lessons, musicianship classes, and ensembles at Settlement Music School in Wynnefield and Germantown since 2024. He also offers private studio lessons and has taught at the New Jersey School of Music in Medford since 2021. Students from these programs range from age 6 to 75. After tutoring over 20 peer students at the University of the Arts for three years, he received the University’s Excellence in Tutoring Award in 2017.