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The Australian organist, harpsichordist, choral conductor and musicologist, John O'Donnell, was educated at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he was appointed lecturer in academic studies at the age of 18. In 1969, he won England’s first National Organ Playing Competition.
In 1974 John O'Donnell was appointed senior lecturer in music at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), where he subsequently served a term as dean. In 1990, he was appointed senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Melbourne, and from 2007 to 2010 he was Choir Director at Ormond College. Currently he is the organist of Monash University in Melbourne (since 1974), Founder/Director of Melbourne's foremost chamber choir, Ensemble Gombert (founded in 1990), keyboard player for the Baroque chamber ensemble Capella Corelli (founded in 1988). As a church musician he was Director of the Choir of the Canterbury Fellowship in Melbourne for more than thirty years (1985-2015). He is currently Director of Music at All Saint’s Anglican Church, East St Kilda.
John O'Donnell performs as a conductor, organist, harpsichordist and pianist, and is also active in music research and editing. He has undertaken 21 concert tours in Europe and 12 in North America, principally as organist and choral conductor.
John O'Donnell is the first person to perform J.S. Bach's complete keyboard works (organ and harpsichord) in public, a total of 29 recitals. His recordings of the complete keyboard works of Johann Kaspar Kerll (which he had previously edited for the Viennese publisher Doblinger) and organ works of J.S. Bach have met with international acclaim, later named Best Recording of the Year (2000) in the London International Record Review.
At the Woodend Winter Arts Festival, John O'Donnell directed multiple performances of Gagliano's opera La Dafne (1608), Peri’s L’Euridice (1601, the oldest extant opera), and the six intermedii to the play La Pellegrina (1589). During 2009, he conducted a highly-acclaimed season of George Frideric Handel’s opera Serse (Xerxes) with Victorian Opera, for which he was nominated for a Green Room Award. He has also directed multiple performances of Baroque and Classical choral and orchestral works, including G.F. Handel's Coronation Anthems and Jephthah, J.S. Bach' St John Passion (BWV 245), St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) and Mass in B minor (BWV 232), four of Haydn’s Masses, and W.A. Mozart's two Vespers settings and Requiem. His major areas of research have been performance practices in the music of J.S. Bach, and musica ficta in High Renaissance polyphony.
In 1973, John O'Donnell was invited to Monash to advise on the commissioning of an organ for Robert Blackwood Hall. He stated at the outset that his preferred builder was Jürgen Ahrend of Leer in Germany, and the following year the Ahrend Orgelbau was contracted to design and construct the instrument.
This month (October 2019), John O'Donnell has had 46 years of continuous service to Monash, successively as organ adviser, Robert Blackwood Hall organist, and University organist. He curreently lives in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. |
