Anna O’Keeffe Yarbrough is a modern classical composer and pianist based in Charleston, South Carolina. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she draws from a life shaped by the various cultural centers she has called home—among them Sydney, Paris, Nashville, and New York City—experiences that continue to shape the depth and character of her music. Her work offers a compelling fusion of emotional depth and rich contemporary textures, bridging classical tradition and modern expression, often with piano front and center.

Yarbrough’s formative early years at the piano built a strong technical foundation while kindling an early passion for the instrument’s expressive possibilities. Early studies progressed into advanced piano performance at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland) under the late Michael McGuffin, where she ultimately earned her BMus (Hons). After completing her degree, she relocated to Sydney, Australia, where she pivoted toward songwriting and creative arts—an expansion that laid the groundwork for the broader creative career that followed.

After a brief couple of years in the nation’s oldest city (St. Augustine, Florida), Yarbrough expanded her creative practice with a move to Nashville, Tennessee, where she immersed herself in the city’s songwriting community through the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and undertook specialized training with Berklee College of Music. It was also around this time that she made her first foray into the world of sync licensing.

In 2016, Yarbrough relocated to New York City, marking a pivotal chapter of accelerated growth where her expansion into licensing would result in signing work with publishers across the United Kingdom, United States and Canada. It was also here that she established herself as a prolific session musician, working with clients across the globe. Later, briefly making home in Atlanta, Paris, and London would prove creatively fruitful, each city contributing fresh influences to her evolving sound. Paris, in particular, was formative: it was there that Yarbrough composed much of her debut solo album.

As a recording artist, Yarbrough’s previous releases include debut full-length DIVIDED; Softer Sessions (a collection of piano works specifically written for synchronization purposes—licensing exclusive to InStyle Music); Extended Play Sojourn; On Madness at Sea, a collaboration with investigative journalist Ian Urbina (The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker); and various singles in partnership with international labels including Sonder House (New York), Lady Blunt (Italy), Rhodium (New York), and 7K! (Berlin)—all initially released under her original artist name, Anna Yarbrough.

Yarbrough’s music has reached a global audience, amassing over 15 million streams across platforms and earning placements in film and television worldwide. Her work has been featured in international documentaries such as Secret Impressionists (2020); Emmy-winning daytime dramas (The Young and the Restless, CBS); critically acclaimed animated series (Rick and Morty, Adult Swim); reality programming (Keeping Up With the Kardashians, E!); talk shows (The Ellen DeGeneres Show, ABC/CBS); cultural series (Ear to the Ground, RTE One, Ireland); and lifestyle and design programming (History of Home, CuriosityStream; Gut Job, HGTV Canada). Her broadcast reach extends across major networks and platforms including PBS, Amazon, Peacock, Hulu, Apple+, HBO Max, Netflix, and NPR. She has been featured on leading editorial playlists on Spotify (Classical New Releases, Chilled Focus, Morning Study, Soft Instrumental, Relaxing Christmas) and Apple Music (Pure Focus), while also receiving frequent radio play on BBC London, Soho Radio London, KEXP (Seattle), and NeoFM (FluxFM, Berlin).

Alongside her own recording career, Yarbrough founded and directed boutique Brooklyn-based label Rhodium. Under her leadership, the label became a reliable platform for independent emerging artists, offering personalized mentorship in shaping artistic identity, refining craft, and navigating the complexities of the modern music industry.

In 2022, Yarbrough purchased a historic 1827 property in downtown Charleston and has been thoughtfully restoring a studio space within its walls. What began as architectural restoration quickly became an act of personal creative renewal, blending her newfound love of historic preservation with her mission to curate a vibrant artistic hub for her work. 2026 marks a reintroductory chapter of her work under Anna O’Keeffe Yarbrough, signaling the culmination of a transformative creative sabbatical spent raising her young children while working on various other musical endeavors. Now in the final stages of the studio build, Yarbrough has been coaching other creatives and writing new material for release in 2026 and beyond.