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Connie O'Brien: A New Face at the Essex Winter Series

Connie O'Brien didn't plan it this way: for her first concert as president of the Essex Winter Series, when she gets up to thank the people who worked to make the performance possible, the audience will have something to focus on besides her smile. It's one of her pinkies, which will have a long splint from a minor operation.

"Wouldn't you know something like that would happen," Connie says.

The Essex Winter Series commences on Sunday, Jan. 9 with the renowned Tokyo String Quartet. Pianist Mihae Lee, a Deep River resident, with an equally impressive concert résumé, will join the group for this performance. Lee is also the new artistic director of the series.

There are four concerts in all: on Sunday, Jan. 30, pianist Dawn Upshaw and pianist Gilbert Kalish; on Friday, Feb. 11, an afternoon of jazz with Jeff Barnhart and the Northeast All Stars; and on Sunday, March 27, Stringfest with violinist Ani Kavafian, violist Ettore Causa, cellist Carter Brey. and three emerging artists. The first three performances take place at Valley Regional High School; the March 27 concert is at John Winthrop Middle School.

For Connie, the series is the perfect answer the doldrums of a winter weekend.

"It's the quintessential Sunday afternoon experience, just sit there and enjoy the music," she says.

This is a time of transition, Connie points out, for the series. For more than 30 years, Fenton Brown, now trustee emeritus, organized the programs.

"He was Mr. Essex Winter Series," Connie says.

Now, Connie says, the series will focus more on the collective expertise of its board and committees.

"All organizations evolve," she explains.

The board, Connie says, is eager to have more information about its own subscriber base, tracking where subscriptions are coming from.

"That way we can get more bang for our buck," Connie says, referring to advertising.

Advertising and marketing, in fact, are a large part of Connie's professional background. She has a master's degree in business administration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and worked for a number of large New York advertising agencies, among the Foote, Cone & Belding and Ogilvy and Mather.

Some 20 years ago, Connie left the world of advertising and moved to Westbrook, into the cottage she had come to as a child with her family in the summer. It took her five years to find the perfect home, a cliff-top perch in Essex, which she had extensively remodeled, with spectacular views of the Connecticut River. She still likes to go into New York regularly for one of her longtime interests, the theater.

Connie grew up in East Hartford, where her family owned an insurance agency. In addition, her father was active in local Democratic politics. Connie remembers even as a child, distributing leaflets for local candidates. When her father died at the age of 58, Connie says her mother, with no business experience, took over the agency. She proved to be a natural.

"She could sell sand in the Sahara," Connie says.

Connie herself started out as a teenager as the beach correspondent covering the shoreline for the Hartford Courant. She remembers once interviewing Jayne Mansfield, when the actress was appearing at a local theater. After her graduation from Marymount College, she worked as a reporter for the Courant, but left to go to business school because she wanted to be in New York City.

When her mother became too ill to operate the family insurance agency, Connie returned to Connecticut ran the business for a number of years before selling it-but she is not retired. She is now a realtor working with an agency in Essex. Working, she says, is very much a part of her personal style.

"I have a low boredom threshold," she says.

Real estate, she says, gives her ample scope for both her marketing expertise and her love of making deals. She can see only one drawback-limiting the time she can travel. Over the years, often extending business trips, Connie has visited countries all over the world from Argentina to Korea and Bora Bora in French Polynesia. She still has a list of places that she would like to see, including Vietnam, Kenya, and Turkey.

Connie's current interests encompass everything from a weekly poker game to antiquing and golf.

"I love golf but I'm a lousy player," she says.

Antiques have been a passion since her youth, when she recalls going to an annual antique fair with her mother on Nantucket.

"I guess if I could do only one thing in my life, it would be to go antiquing," she says.

Once, she recalls, she found a piece she had been searching for at an antique shop in London. The proprietor would only take cash. She had enough money to pay for her purchase or take a cab to the airport. She found a solution. She bought the antique, hailed a cab, and told the driver to take her to a bank.

"In those days," she says, "there were no cash machines, but you could borrow money on your credit card, and that's what I did."

As she reflects on her life, Connie says one of her regrets is coming back to Hartford to marry, rather than taking a job in Paris (the marriage didn't last). But in a life of accomplishment and adventure, she has few misgivings.

"I feel comfortable in my own skin," she says, adding, "At this age I don't want to reinvent myself, but it is still important to have goals."