Caili O’Doherty

New York-based pianist, composer, arranger and educator, Caili O’Doherty is known for integrating structures of language in both her compositions and her approach to improvisation. Her recent music focuses on the celebration, preservation, and expansion upon the achievements of jazz’s unsung women heroes. O’Doherty has received national awards for piano performance and composition from the ASCAP Foundation and Downbeat Magazine.

Praised by All About Jazz for its “exquisitely forged, dramatic and darkly hued pieces”, O’Doherty’s debut release Padme (ODO Records, 2015) uses lyrics to give the melodies a natural rhythm of language. Padme was selected as a Downbeat Magazine Editor’s pick and received a 4-star review in All About Jazz. She was invited to write a Woodshed Article for the Keyboard School section of Downbeat Magazine’s September 2015 issue on the topic “Using Language as a Tool for Composing and Improvising”.

Quarantine Dream (Posi-Tone Records, 2022) was O’Doherty’s second release as a leader and featured her quartet, Tamir Shmerling on bass, Cory Cox on drums, and Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone. Quarantine Dream showcases eight original compositions and three influential songs reinterpreted by O’Doherty. The album release was followed by a U.S. CD release tour with support from a Jazz Road grant from South Arts.

Bluer Than Blue (Outside In Music, 2025) is the latest release from O’Doherty, and features her arrangements of compositions by pianist, composer, and vocalist Lil Hardin Armstrong. Bluer Than Blue was recorded live at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and was funded in part by a Presenters Consortium for Jazz grant from Chamber Music America.

The Caili O’Doherty Quintet was selected by the U.S. Department of State as one of ten ensembles to participate in the 2022-23 American Music Abroad U.S. State Department tour to the Republic of Georgia and Canada. Also in 2022, O’Doherty was one of ten artists to receive a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, which funds the creation of a new original work. O’Doherty’s CMA New Jazz Work entitled “Suite for Gearoidin” premiered at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Bar Bayeux, and Birdland Jazz Club and will be released as an album in 2026.

O’Doherty has performed with various jazz groups at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Smoke Jazz Club (with saxophonist Antonio Hart), Kimmel Center (opening for pianist Martial Solal), Toronto Jazz Festival, Panama Jazz Festival (opening for the Wayne Shorter Quartet), Portland Jazz Festival, Guinness Cork Jazz Festival in Ireland, Dominican Republic Jazz Festival, MICI International Film Festival in Mexico, Stanford Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Festival, and UNESCO First International Jazz Day in Paris, as well as two US State Dept. supported tours to Colombia and Togo and Benin in West Africa. She was also selected as one of five female jazz pianists invited to participate in the inaugural Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Emerging Artists Workshop held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and to perform at a showcase concert at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival.

Her touring history includes two west coast tours in support of O’Doherty’s album Padme with her NYC quartet, a duo tour in China with saxophonist Hailey Niswanger, a collective tour with saxophonist Caroline Davis throughout the Midwest with the Davis + O’Doherty Quartet, and a tour in Israel with saxophonist Lihi Haruvi.
O’Doherty is currently on the faculty at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. Additionally, she is on the faculty at Jazz House Kids and Savannah Music Festival Jazz Academy. She is an Artist Instructor for Open Studio Pro, a prestigious online jazz lesson platform, as well as maintaining a robust private teaching studio of her own. O’Doherty has been a faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop since 2012, as well as faculty at the University of Wisconsin Madison Summer Music Clinic and Litchfield Jazz Camp.

She holds a Bachelor of Music in performance from Berklee College of Music (BM ’13) and a Master of Music in performance from Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (MM ’19).