Mark O'Connor
Mark O'Connor is an American violinist and composer whose music combines bluegrass, country, jazz and classical.
O'Connor has released 45 albums, of mostly original music, over a 45-year career. He has recorded and performed mostly his original American Classical music for decades. He is also an expert at traditionally-based fiddle and bluegrass music. He has appeared on 450 albums, composed nine concertos and has put together groundbreaking ensembles. His mentors have included Benny Thomasson who taught O'Connor to fiddle as a teenager, French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli with whom O'Connor toured as a teenager, and guitarists Chet Atkins, Doc Watson and Steve Morse.
Early life
O'Connor was born and raised in Seattle, and won national titles on the fiddle, guitar, and mandolin as a teenager. He made his Grand Ole Opry debut at introduced by Roy Acuff, and became the youngest musician to sign a recording contract with Rounder Records In 1975, at thirteen, O'Connor won the WSM, Tennessee, and Grand Ole Opry sponsored Grand Masters Fiddle Championships in Nashville, Tennessee against amateur and professional competitors of all ages. That same year he won another national championship on acoustic guitar, at the National Flat Pick Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas.At age 19, O'Connor won the Buck White International Mandolin Championship in Kerrville, Texas. He is a four-time grand champion at the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Several of his teenage albums are noteworthy and inspired a generation of young acoustic musicians, such as "Pickin' In The Wind", "A Texas Jam Session", "Markology" and "False Dawn". As a teenager he was in two seminal instrumental groups, the David Grisman Quintet and The Dregs.
Musical career
O'Connor composes, arranges, and records American music in genres that include folk, classical, and jazz. His works include concertos, and compositions for orchestra, string quartets, string trios, choral music, solo unaccompanied pieces, folk and bluegrass ensemble and a symphony. After releasing six albums as a teen on Rounder Records, O'Connor signed a long term record deal with Warner Bros. Records in Nashville. He released a series of instrumental albums such as "Elysian Forest" and "On The Mark" as well as teaming up with Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer for "Strength In Numbers". His first award winning albums that catapulted him into the international stage include "New Nashville Cats" and "Heroes" both released on Warner Bros.O'Connor's "Fiddle Concerto ", a violin concerto in American fiddle style commission by the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, has been performed over 250 times, making it one of the most performed concertos written in the last 50 years. The recording of the concerto was conducted by Marin Alsop and "Concordia Orchestra".
In 1993, O'Connor teamed up with Charlie Daniels to record a sequel to Daniels' 1979 single "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" entitled "The Devil Came Back To Georgia". O'Connor and Daniels recorded the song alongside Johnny Cash, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt. The song was on O'Connor's album, Heroes. Between 1995 and 2000, O'Connor teamed up with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer to release "Appalachia Waltz" and "Appalachian Journey" spending nearly 2 years at the top of the classical music Billboard charts.
In 1996, O'Connor composed The Olympic Reel for the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. It premiered in front of 100,000 people in the Olympic Stadium, as well as 3.5 billion people from the television viewing audience.
In 1997, O'Connor and others composed and performed music based on folk melodies as arrangements for the American Revolutionary War-era Public Broadcasting Service documentary miniseries, Liberty! The American Revolution. The theme music for the miniseries is O'Connor's Song of the Liberty Bell.
In 1999, he recorded his Fanfare For The Volunteer with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Sony Classical, and one of his most critically acclaimed orchestral pieces American Seasons, which alludes to The Four Seasons, for Sony Classical as well. "American Seasons", and his "Strings & Threads" Suite was performed by The Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra in 2001 at the Great Performers concert at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
In a review by The New York Times, "if Dvorak had spent his American leisure time in Nashville instead of Spillville, Iowa, his New World Symphony might have sounded like this." Both "Strings & Threads" Suite and "American Seasons" were recorded for the album The American Seasons, released in 2001 on the label OMAC Records. In 2008 O'Connor paired up with violinist Nadja Sallerno-Sonnenberg to record his "Double Violin Concerto" with Marin Alsop and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra for OMAC Records.
Over a period of five years, O'Connor teamed up with jazz musicians Frank Vignola and Jon Burr for a trilogy of "Hot Swing Trio" albums dedicated to his mentor Stephane Grappelli. O'Connor recorded Thirty-Year Retrospective in 2003 with the mandolinist Chris Thile, guitarist Bryan Sutton, and bassist Byron House. It celebrates his thirty years as a recording artist on his own OMAC label. He also provided the soundtrack to a 30-minute animated film on the story of Johnny Appleseed, narrated by Garrison Keillor. He contributed four tracks to a 1993 album on the theme of The Night Before Christmas, narrated by Meryl Streep.
His composition, Appalachia Waltz, has been adopted by Yo-Yo Ma as part of his live performance repertoire, and used frequently as music for weddings including two of former Vice President Al Gore's daughters. One of his chamber music efforts is his piano trio entitled Poets and Prophets which is inspired by his boyhood hero Johnny Cash. O'Connor and Rosanne Cash united in double bill concerts for premiering their collaboration. The piece was recorded by the Eroica Trio.
On April 28, 2009, O'Connor teamed with chamber musicians Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer and Matt Haimovitz to present his second and third string quartets, amalgamating bluegrass with classical styles, at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. O'Connor released the recording for both string quartets under the label OMAC in May 2009.
In 2010, O'Connor released his "Americana Symphony" recorded by the Baltimore Symphony as well as his "Concerto No. 6 and released on OMAC Records. In 2011, he released his unique "The Improvised Violin Concerto" on CD and DVD with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras. Partnering with his wife Maggie, his son Forrest and his daughter-in-law, they recorded two band albums "Coming Home" for Rounder Records and "A Musical Legacy" for OMAC Records. He also recorded a duets album with Maggie featuring music from the O'Connor Method. Some of O'Connor's albums are or contain tributes to his musical mentors and inspirations, including Niccolò Paganini, Benny Thomasson, and Grappelli. He has recorded solo albums for OMAC Records, Rounder and SONY Classical Records.
The O'Connor Method
O'Connor has developed a string instrument technique for music teachers and students, The O'Connor Method — A New American School of String Playing. The method places an emphasis on music and playing techniques from North America, in addition to focusing on rhythmic development, ear training, and improvisation.The method is published as a series of books that also contains short essays about famous Americans who played fiddle, such as Johnny Gimble, Ray Nance, Byron Berline, Pinchas Zukerman, Eddie South, Kenny Baker, Benny Thomasson, Scott Joplin, Thomas Jefferson and Davy Crockett, and the history of a wide variety of music including jazz, bluegrass, Romani, western swing, cajun, blues, African American Spirituals, ragtime and Mariachi. Teacher training sessions based on the Method take place around the United States and in other countries including at O'Connor Method String Camps. The physical edition which includes violin, viola, cello and orchestra method books was released in 2010. In 2020, the books were released as a digital edition for download.
Awards and honors
O'Connor won a Grammy Award three times: in 1991 for Best Country Instrumental Performance, The New Nashville Cats; in 2000 for Best Classical Crossover Album, Appalachian Journey with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer; and in 2016 for Best Bluegrass Album, Coming Home by the O'Connor Band With Mark O'Connor.He was named Musician of the Year by the Country Music Association six years in a row. His collaborative single "Restless" won the 1991 CMA Vocal Event of the Year award. O'Connor is 4-time National Old-Time Fiddler Champion, 3-time Grand Master Fiddler Champion, 2-time national guitar flatpick champion, and world mandolin champion, all achieved in his teens.