Mark O'Connor, Featured Composer
The New Century Chamber Orchestra welcomes Mark O'Connor as 2010-2011 Featured Composer. Mr. O'Connor will join the orchestra in November 2010. New Century will premiere a new work by Mr. O'Connor in May 2011.
Mark O'Connor (born August 5, 1961 in Seattle, Washington) is an American bluegrass, country and classical fiddler, composer and music teacher. O'Connor's music is wide-ranging, critically acclaimed, and he has received numerous awards for both his playing and his composition. As a teenager, he won national string instrument championships for guitar, mandolin and fiddle. His mentors include Texas old-time fiddler Benny Thomasson who taught Mr. O'Connor to fiddle as a teenager, French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, with whom Mr. O'Connor toured as a teenager, and guitarist Chet Atkins.
Mr. O'Connor has won two Grammy awards; one for his New Nashville Cats album and another for his Appalachian Journey album with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer. He was named Musician of the Year by the Country Music Association six years in a row (from 1991-1996). His collaborative single Restless (with Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and Steve Wariner) won the 1991 CMA Vocal Event of the Year award. He has recorded solo albums for Rounder, Warner Bros. Records, Sony, and his own CD label, OMAC Records.
Mr. O'Connor has crossed musical genres, composing, arranging, and recording folk, classical and jazz music. His Fiddle Concerto has received over 200 performances making it one of the most performed concertos written in the last 50 years. He has composed six violin concertos, string quartets, string trios, choral works, solo unaccompanied works and a new Symphony. Now, at age 47, he has melded and shaped these influences into a new American Classical music, and a vision of an entirely American school of string playing. As The Los Angeles Times warmly noted, he has "crossed over so many boundaries, that his style is purely personal."
Mr. O'Connor has worked and recorded with a wide variety of artists, such as Chris Thile, Chet Atkins, James Taylor, Michelle Shocked, Alison Krauss, David Grisman, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, Renée Fleming, Stéphane Grappelli, Patty Loveless, The Dixie Dregs and Wynton Marsalis. Some of his more recent albums are or contain tributes to his musical mentors and inspirations, including Niccolò Paganini, Benny Thomasson, and Grappelli.
As word of his considerable compositional talents has spread, Mark O'Connor's musical works have been embraced by a variety of performers. Yo-Yo Ma has recorded the solo cello version of "Appalachia Waltz" and frequently performs it in recital. Renee Fleming has performed and recorded vocal arrangements O'Connor composed for her. The Eroica Trio performs his "Poets and Prophets Piano Trio No. 1" regularly, a piece they commissioned from him in 2003. Sharon Isbin has recorded his duet for violin and guitar, several top classical violinists are performing his "Caprices" in recital, his flute concerto "The Fallen" has been performed by a number of flutists and is slated for recording by Carla Auld, Dance troupes, including Twyla Tharp Dance Co., the New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, are staging and choreographing to Mr. O'Connor's expressive American music, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra recently recorded his new Americana Symphony.
Mark O'Connor hosts an annual fiddle camp in Tennessee and an annual Strings Conference in San Diego, California. O'Connor is currently living in New York City working on new music. On November 16, 2009, he released books 1 and 2 of his 10-book O'Connor Violin Method - A New American School of String Playing for string teachers and students of the violin designed to "guide students gradually through the development of pedagogical and musical techniques necessary to become a proficient, well-rounded musician through a carefully planned succession of pieces."
For more information about Mark O'Connor, please visit http://markoconnor.com.