Wed 10/30 @ 7:30PM
Does Mark O’Connor play the “violin” or the “fiddle”?
In fact, there’s no difference in the instrument, only the musical genre. So O’Connor plays both.
Proficient in fiddle, guitar and mandolin, he won country/folk/ bluegrass-style competitions in all three as a teenager. But as a composer and performer, he’s also delved deeply into jazz and classical music, writing full orchestral pieces (many built on traditional American folk themes) as well as a bulging songbook of bluegrass tunes. He’s even created a teaching/learning technique for string players called the O’Connor Method and conducts string camps.
One of his ensembles (of course he has more than one!) is the O’Connor String Quartet, featuring three woman musicians — violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, cellist Gillian Gallagher and cellist Patrice Jackson — with impressive resumes of classical credentials.
He’ll be playing with them when he performs at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium as part of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall Master Series. They’ll be playing a couple of his string quartets with country flavor, No. 2 “Bluegrass” and No. 3 “Old-Time.” CIM president Joel Smirnoff will conduct a pre-show conversation with O’Connor at 6 pm.
Tickets, $33-$51, are available by calling the CIM box office at 216-421-7350.
O’Connor will also conduct an educational workshop at CMA on Tuesday, and two masters classes — one in composition and another in improvisation — at CIM on Wednesday. Go here for more info.