O'Donovan, Aoife

Aoife Maria O'Donovan ( EE-fə; born November 18, 1982) is an American singer and Grammy Award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still, as well as one-third of the supergroup folk trio I'm with Her alongside Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins. As a solo artist, O'Donovan has released four critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), Age of Apathy (2022, nominated for the Best Folk Album Grammy Award), and All My Friends (2024, nominated for the Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Song Grammy Awards). She has also released multiple noteworthy live recordings and EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), Man in a Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge (2016), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (and Other Songs) (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers. O'Donovan has performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony Orchestra. In 2012, she sang on most of the tracks on the album Be Still by the jazz group the Dave Douglas Quintet, featuring trumpeter Dave Douglas. During the summer of 2013, she toured with Garrison Keillor and his A Prairie Home Companion Radio Romance Tour. She also performed at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark 2014. In summer 2017, she joined Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home "Love and Comedy" Tour. She has performed, recorded and collaborated with a large variety of acclaimed musicians including Ollabelle, Karan Casey and Seamus Egan, Jerry Douglas, Jim Lauderdale, Darol Anger, Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins, Christina Courtin, Chris Thile, Noam Pikelny, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, Greensky Bluegrass, Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma. Her songwriting has also led her to be featured in films and television and came to the attention of Alison Krauss, who recorded O'Donovan's song "Lay My Burden Down" on her album Paper Airplane (2011 Rounder Records) and is used in the film Get Low (2010 Sony Pictures). She has had solo songs placed on True Blood (HBO) and Private Practice (ABC), as well as Crooked Still songs featured in The Last of Us.