Belinda O'Hooley is a singer-songwriter and pianist from Leeds, in Yorkshire, England. She performs solo and in several collaborative projects, and comes from a family line of Irish County Sligo musicians.

Career

O'Hooley plays piano and sings, and her work ranges across folk and related collaborations. From 2004 to 2008 she is a member of Rachel Unthank & the Winterset, where she contributes songwriting, piano and voice. The group later becomes The Unthanks.

She also records as a solo artist. Her solo albums include Music is My Silence and Inversions. In 2015 she and Jim Boyes release Sensations Of A Wound: The Long, Long Trail Of Robert Riby Boyes.

Collaborations and bands

O'Hooley forms the duo O'Hooley & Tidow with Yorkshire singer-songwriter Heidi Tidow. The duo issues six albums and appears on several tracks on Chumbawamba's 2010 album ABCDEFG. With Tidow, she also performs in the all-female group Coven, alongside Hannah James, Rowan Rheingans, Hazel Askew and Grace Petrie. Coven releases the EP Unholy Choir in 2017.

She is also part of The Petrels with Jackie Oates. Some tracks by the duo are released in 2011. O'Hooley records with a number of other artists, including playing piano on Jackie Oates' albums Jackie Oates, The Violet Hour, Hyperboreans, Saturnine and Lullabies. She also appears with Heidi Tidow on Lucy Ward's debut album Adelphi Has to Fly and on Patsy Matheson's Domino Girls.

Background

O'Hooley is born in Leeds on 18 July 1971. She performs alongside her first cousin Tommy Fleming, who is a singer and formerly a member of De Danann.