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Mark O'Connor: Paving his own musical path |
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Written by Glenn BurnSilver
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Thursday, 29 March 2007 |
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 During his career, Mark O’Connor has worn many hats: classical composer, gypsy swing improvisationalist, bluegrass session player, band leader, teacher and mentor.
Yet, no matter what O’Connor immerses himself in, it all revolves around the traditional American fiddle music he became enamored with after seeing Eaton resident Doug Kershaw on TV. He apprenticed in Seattle’s surprisingly vibrant folk/bluegrass scene and later earned his degree touring with Stephane Grappelli.
Today, O’Connor is a Grammy Award-winning composer, merging folk phrasing, jazz inflection and bluegrass fiddle to create a new style of expressive classical music that is distinctly American-based, yet with roots in Old-World traditions. And though he remains involved in numerous projects, from his Hot Swing Trio, composing concertos, running summer fiddle camps and keeping his eye out for hot new talent, he still makes time to tour.
He comes to Fort Collins this time with the Appalachia Waltz Trio on April 3.
The trio, which features young 20-somethings Rebecca Alvers on viola and Mike Block on cello, recreates one of O’Connor’s most famous and well-respected compositions “Appalachia Waltz,” originally recorded with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Mayer.
“It is based on the idea that my classical music training and my folk music training can co-exist together in one setting. The whole emphasis was on composing music and developing a new type of string sound together,” O’Connor said during a phone interview from his New York City home. “It’s a direct synthesis between the two musical worlds. … It’s really at the core of everything I am doing today.”
That includes writing concertos, pieces for string quartets or piano trios, or lending his distinctive style to film soundtracks for “The Patriot” and “Gods and Generals.” At one time, the in-demand session fiddler (he’s appeared on more than 400 albums), O’Connor “quit cold turkey” in 1990, as the toil of constant sessions wore thin against his personal quest to expand his musical knowledge.
“I spent too much effort doing something I had already done,” he recalled of his session work. “Even if I had a good idea that day, in my soul I knew projects that ‘might have been’ would be lost to the wind because I was doing something else I probably didn’t want to do. There is a lot of not-really-very-good music I was hired to play on. At some point, I just realized, I was wasting precious days when I could have been discovering something unique, that I could pull out of my talent.”
His first solo offering was the “Appalachia Waltz.”
“This music is one of the benchmarks of my entire career,” he said in closing, with all the modesty of a proud parent. “What I am touring with now is an extension of that. The music lives on with these young brilliant string players, and it’s some of my most successful, recognized and beautiful music I have composed for strings. It’s really gratifying that I can put it on stage again with new audiences.”
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TO GO TO THE SHOW
Mark O’Connor’s
Appalachia Waltz Trio
7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, April 3
Edna Rizley Griffin Concert Hall
1400 Remington St., Fort Collins
$25 adults; $15 students
491.4849
www.markoconnor.com
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STILL SWINGING
Though fiddler/ violinist Mark O’Connor is busy these days composing mostly classical-based music, he still likes to cut loose every now and then with his Hot Swing Trio. There, unlike with the rigid structure of classical music — composed to be performed a certain way — he can improvise with reckless abandon.
“I have to have one group where I can improvise,” he said with a laugh.
“I keep Hot Swing going because I do enjoy an improvisational outlet. I really like stretching out from time to time.”
WALTZING WITH GRAMMY
When Mark O’Connor wrote “Appalachia Waltz,” in 1996 Grammy organizers struggled to find a category to put the recording in, and it was subsequently passed over. When O’Conner retuned with his sequel in 2000, “Appalachian Journey,” the committee had created the Classical Crossover category. Naturally, O’Conner took the Grammy home that year.
Glenn BurnSilver | Only registered users can write comments.
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