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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZO'CONNOR, Mark(b 4 August 1962, Seattle WA) Fiddler, also adept on guitar, dobro, banjo, mandolin, steel guitar, bass, mandola, keyboards. A child prodigy, learned guitar at age six, then fiddle: his first teacher was Barbara Lamb, herself still very young). He appeared on the Grand Ole Opry at eleven and made an eponymous album for Rounder at twelve. He won a Classical/Flamenco contest at the University of Washington, the National Guitar Flat Picking Championship, two National Junior Fiddle Championships and the Grand Masters Fiddle Championship at Nashville's Fan Fair '75; several more solo albums followed on Rounder '76-9. He toured with David Grisman '80 and became violinist and guitarist for the Dixie Dregs; later came tours with Doc and Merle Watson, John McEuen, Chris Hillman, etc. He moved to Nashville '83 playing sessions, and was named ACM's Fiddler of the Year '86; he signed to WB '88 with eclectic albums and used 53 top country musicians on his landmark New Nashville Cats '91; his single 'Restless' won a Grammy '91 and was named CMA Vocal Event of '92. He was named CMA Instrumentalist of the Year '91-6. Other albums include Pickin' In The Wind '76, Texas Jam Session '77, Markology '80, Soppin' The Gravy '81, Stones From Which The Arch Was Made '87 and False Dawn '88 on Rounder; Elysian Forest '88 and The Fiddle Concerto '95 on WB; The Championship Years '90 on Country Music Foundation. He plays jazz, classical, bluegrass, Texas swing and rock-jazz-country fusion. Heroes '93 brought together many of the world's best fiddle players: Vassar Clements, Texas Shorty, L. Shankar, Pinchas Zukerman; O'Connor was introducing his heroes to one another. His OMAC label was first formed when he was a child, the name from O'Connor and MacDonald, his mother's name; nowadays it has been revived to release his Americana Symphony, recorded with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; his string quartets, a double violin concerto with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Mark O'Connor's Hot Swing Trio Live in New York, a Folk Mass with a 40-voice choir, and more. A live Jam Session album was scheduled for April 2010. The O'Connor Violin Method is a two-book guide for teachers and students which uses exposure to just about every kind of violin playing imaginable, the method evolving from O'Connor's experience at his string camps (go here for more info). In December 2009 O'Connor was an artist-in-residence at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, teaching master classes by day and preparing a concert by more than 100 students. At a master class attended by the Wall Street Journal's Jim Fusilli, O'Connor began with a 400-year-old African-American hoedown, 'Boil 'Em Cabbage Down' (also the first lesson in his book), and included a piece by William Hamilton Stepp that turned up note-for-note as 'Hoedown' in Aaron Copland's ballet Rodeo. Bartók, Dvorák, Copland, Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla and many other composers have used folk elements in their work, but that ball has been dropped by the commercial music business; O'Connor wants to create an environment in which tomorrow's composers and musicians will have the entire rich stream of American music at their fingertips.
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