Teaching
O'Conor currently holds the position of Professor of Piano and Distinguished Visiting Artist at Shenandoah Conservatory (near Washington, D.C.), and retired as Director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in September 2010 although he continues to teach there regularly.
His salary package of €225,000 for his part-time position as director and teacher at the Royal Irish Academy of Music came under criticism by the Comptroller and Auditor General on 3 December and was described as inappropriate in the context of public service norms and for the operation of a modern organisation by the secretary general of the Department of Education, Brigid McManus. Fine Gael spokesman on education called on O'Conor to repay all money received which "appear to be in breach of public service guidelines". In a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee on 20 January 2011 it was recognised that in return for his salary O’Conor raised €3.4 million, increasing the RIAM's overall income from private sources through fundraising efforts. As a result of a subsequent government investigation, Mr. O'Conor was completely exonerated of all blame in the matter and was called a "National Treasure" by the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Since 1997 he has taken on the mantle of Kempff, and gives the annual Beethoven Interpretation Course in Kempff's own villa in Positano, Italy where Kempff gave the course from 1957. A television programme made in 2007 (the 50th anniversary of the founding of the course by Kempff) is now available on YouTube entitled 'Beethoven Bootcamp'.
He gives masterclasses and lectures in many of the places he performs as well as in many of the major music institutions including the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools in New York, Harvard, Yale, Temple, Rutgers, Indiana and Seattle Universities, the Hamamatsu Piano Academy in Japan, the National University of the Arts in Korea, the Australian National Academy and the Sydney Conservatorium in Australia and the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music in London.
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