Mark O'Connor (musician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark O'Connor (1985)

Mark O'Connor (born August 5, 1961 in Seattle ) is an American violinist, fiddle player, guitarist, mandolin player, composer and music teacher.

O'Connor had guitar lessons as a child and learned to play flamenco guitar by himself. At the age of eleven he switched to the fiddle and became a student of Benny Thomasson . He later studied with the French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli , with whom he also performed. He then worked with David Grisman and his quintet and Steve Morse and his Dixie Dregs and won competitions as a guitarist, fiddler and mandolin player between 1975 and 1982.

In 1983 he went to Nashville and performed with country stars like the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band , Emmylou Harris and Randy Travis . With Edgar Meyer , Béla Fleck , Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush , he founded the band Strength in Numbers in 1986 , with which he also performed his own compositions. In 1991 he was awarded a Grammy for his album New Nashville Cats .

His first album of crossover music was released by Sony Classical in 1996 . He recorded it with Yo-Yo Ma and the bassist Edgar Meyer , and it contained his own compositions, such as the very successful Appalachia Walz that gave the title its title . The trio's second album, Appalachian Journey , was released in 2000 and earned O'Connor a second Grammy award. The album Hot Swing! (with Jon Burr and Frank Vignola ) was a tribute to his teacher Grappelli and was released in 2001, with the same line-up he recorded the album Live in New York in 2005 . The album An Appalachian Christmas was created in 2011 in collaboration with Renée Fleming , Alison Krauss and James Taylor . With his wife Maggie he recorded the album Duo in 2015 .

As early as 1993, the Fiddle Concerto O'Connor's most popular and most played violin concerto was written. By 2010 he had written six more violin concertos, as well as the Americana Symphony . In 2009 he recorded his string quartets No. 2 ( Bluegrass ) and No. 3 ( Old-Time ) with Ida Kavafian , Paul Neubauer and Matt Haimovitz . Ensembles like the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and the Gloriae Dei Cantores as well as the director Ken Burns gave him composition commissions. For the Eroica Trio he wrote the piece Poets and Prophets, inspired by the music of Johnny Cash .

In 2009, O'Conner published a textbook for violin and fiddle playing, in which he presented his own method that set itself apart from the popular Suzuki method. The textbook is accompanied by the three CDs American Classics , American Strings and MOC4. The O'Connor Method . He gave courses a. a. at the Juilliard School of Music , Harvard University , Berklee College of Music , Cleveland Institute of Music , Rice University , University of Maryland , University of Texas , Curtis Institute , Eastman School of Music , Tanglewood and at the Aspen Summer Festival . From 2008 to 2009 he was artist in residence at the University of California, Los Angeles , from 2010 to 2015 University of Miami . He is also the founder and director of the internationally acclaimed Mark O'Connor String Camp .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME O'Connor, Mark
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American violinist, fiddle player, guitarist, mandolin player, composer and music educator
DATE OF BIRTH 5th August 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle