For over twenty years she was Principal Harp with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam and the Munich Philharmonic. In 2014 she chose to concentrate on her teaching; today she is professor of harp at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Music Academy Basel, and her students are prizewinners of international competitions and hold positions in leading orchestras. She previously taught at the Mozarteum Salzburg and the Rotterdam Conservatory, and has given guest classes in Munich, Amsterdam, at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki and the Juilliard School New York.

Sarah O'Brien studied at the Geneva Conservatoire with Catherine Eisenhoffer, completing her studies with a premier prix de virtuosité in 1991, and continued with Pierre Jamet in Paris and Susann McDonald at Indiana University. As a soloist she has appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink and the Munich Philharmonic under Hartmut Haenchen, among many others, collaborating with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly and Christian Thielemann. From 1988 to 1998 she was harpist of the Sabeth Trio Basel, and from 1992 to 1998 a member of the contemporary ensemble Musikfabrik NRW.