Sweet Sound of Success: O’Neill Brothers Continue to Hit All the Right Notes

Over the past 25 years, piano-play­ing broth­ers Tim and Ryan O’Neill have sold more than 10 mil­lion copies of their songs; had their music streamed online more than one bil­lion (!) times; hit the Bill­board charts; and pro­vid­ed music for movies, NBC, CBS, HBO, PBS and more. On Nov. 1, their more-than-two-decade career hit anoth­er high note: The O’Neill Broth­ers were induct­ed into the Min­neso­ta Music Hall of Fame – a well-deserved hon­or for a remark­able pair of musi­cians, busi­ness­men and people.

Bell­mont Part­ners (in part­ner­ship with the inim­itable Mike Zip­ko) start­ed work­ing with Tim and Ryan not long after they both grad­u­at­ed from Notre Dame, and since then we’ve col­lab­o­rat­ed often and stayed friends over the years. Tim played at Jen and Brian’s wed­ding in 2001, and Jen even hit the road with the O’Neills as they added ‘80s pop sen­sa­tion Deb­bie Gib­son to one of their pop­u­lar Mid­west­ern con­cert tours back in 2006.

In Sunday’s Star­Tri­bune, Chris Riemen­schnei­der takes a look at their phe­nom­e­nal career (they’re #4 on Spotify’s list of the most-streamed Min­neso­ta acts of all time) and “how dex­ter­ous­ly they piv­ot­ed to music’s dig­i­tal stream­ing era.”

They’re not ready to roll their pianos into stor­age yet – not by a long shot. The O’Neills are con­tin­u­ing to dis­trib­ute their music, as well as help­ing oth­er musi­cians nav­i­gate the com­plex, evolv­ing world of dig­i­tal stream­ing. And to cel­e­brate their 25^th anniver­sary as pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians, Tim and Ryan are donat­ing their remain­ing stock of CDs to non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions across the coun­try. Non­prof­its can request a dona­tion of CDs by con­tact­ing info@pianobrothers.com.

After all these years, the O’Neill Broth­ers are con­tin­u­ing to suc­ceed and give back? That’s music to our ears.