Tara McNeill is a violinist, singer and harpist from Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Tara is a member of Grammy-nominated Irish music sensation Celtic Woman. She is the first multi instrumentalist to join the #1 World Music Artists as she brings her violin and harp to the stage. McNeill made her debut performance with Celtic Woman in Johannesburg, South Africa, on September 16, 2016 and has since performed on six continents with the group.
Voices of Angels, McNeill's debut album with Celtic Woman, went to No.1 in the Billboard World and Classical album charts. TV specials and albums include Homecoming: Live from Ireland, the epic Ancient Land filmed in Johnstown Castle in Co. Wexford and The Magic of Christmas. In 2021, Postcards from Ireland was released as both an album and unique TV special that was filmed in fourteen stunning locations across Ireland.
With Celtic Woman, McNeill has performed in 49 U.S. states and venues such as the iconic Red Rocks, Colorado, the 3 Arena, Dublin, Wolf Trap, Virginia and the London Palladium. On their Christmas Symphony tour, she has performed with America's leading orchestras including the Atlanta, Seattle, Utah, Colorado and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras.
McNeill graduated with first class honours in the B.A. in Music Performance (violin) at the Royal Irish Academy of Music under the tuition of Michael D’Arcy. She has toured China, Argentina, Chile and Mexico with Camerata Ireland and world renowned pianist, Barry Douglas, performed with the RTE Concert Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra, led the Ulster Youth Orchestra and both the RIAM Chamber and Symphony Orchestras. McNeill performed the Irish premiere of Finzi's Violin Concerto at the National Concert Hall in Dublin in 2013.
McNeill was a member of the vocal ensemble ANÚNA from 2011 to 2016. She toured Canada, China, Japan and Holland as both a singer and solo violinist with the group as well as performing regularly in Ireland. During her time with ANÚNA she recorded the soundtrack to the video game Diablo III with the vocal ensemble representing the voices of Hell. The game sold 3.5 million units on its first day and twelve million units in its first year. ANÚNA’s contribution earned them a Game Audio Network Guild nomination.
Orchestral tours have taken McNeill throughout Europe, China, Japan, North and South America and South Korea performing in venues such as Carnegie hall, New York, Oriental Arts Centre, Shanghai and the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing. She has won many awards including the Inaugural Flax Trust Classics £5000 bursary and the George & Angela Moore Flax Trust Classics Audience Award in 2012, the Leo Gibney Award for Chamber Music (RIAM), Ballymena Music Festival’s prestigious Young Instrumentalist Award in 2009 and Holywood Music Festival’s Ulster Bank Festival Gala Cup and the d’Arcy Cup and Award in 2010.
Exciting collaborations have included artists such as Bono, Josh Groban, Damien Rice and Il Divo.
McNeill was a lead in the show Ireland Calling in which she was a singer, violinist and harpist. The show appeared in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Dublin, Ireland, in 2014.
She was selected as Head Girl in St. Louis Grammar School, Ballymena 07/08 and obtained a first class honours in the RIAM's Diploma in Music Teaching and Performance in June 2009.
McNeill exclusively uses Vision Titanium Solo, Thomastik Infeld strings and performs on a Roger Hansell violin.