Mark O'Connor Camps/Conferences
Mark O'Connor Music Education: Board of Advisors
MARK O'CONNOR
Founder & President
ARTISTIC ADVISORY BOARD
Angella Ahn
John Blake
Catherine Cho
Stephen Clapp
Glenn Dicterow
Aaron Dworkin
Elliott Forrest
Paul Haas
Matt Haimovitz
Sharon Isbin
Colin Jacobsen
Ida Kavafian
Lydia Kontos
Jaime Laredo
Cho Liang Lin
Yo-Yo Ma
Wynton Marsalis
Edgar Meyer
Paul Neubauer
Mark Ptashne
Philippe Quint
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
Arnold Steinhardt
Twyla Tharp
Eugenia Zukerman
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Sadie deWall
Mark O'Connor
Madeleine Baverstam
STAFF
Helen Holzen
Madeleine Baverstam
Tamara Salzman
Blanche Williams
"(About O'Connor) I've learned so much from talking to him, watching him, listening to him…I'm just trying to keep up with all the things that he's doing."
• Yo-Yo Ma, Los Angeles Daily News
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"(O'Connor's music) makes the very notion of boundaries between classical and popular music seem laughable." - Baltimore Sun
Q: What do you hope students will take away from the New York City String Camp?
MOC: My first goal with students is to engage them with music like they have never heard before; energize them and inspire them for months afterwards, perhaps a lifetime. I want to be able to share with the students the many ways that string playing works in this era, in the current culture and environment. By studying traditions and disciplines that are associated with a myriad of music styles, it can provide glimpses into seeing how string playing has evolved in modern times. To have a basic understanding of what a blues phrase is, how to play a couple of fiddle tunes, how to create some string arrangements, how to approach a jazz chord chart, what an East Indian scale is, learning something that is Asian, Middle Eastern or Appalachia and Bluegrass I feel is a strength, not a weakness. This model is designed to work hand in hand as well as add and multiply the great traditions and effects of classical teachings and literature. I feel the well rounded string student of tomorrow is the one that is going to find more work, and more satisfaction within the global environments in which we all work and perform in.
Q: Why should today's string students be interested in multiple styles?
MOC: Today's performers (myself included) combine environments and traditions from American music styles, incorporating them in to the classical setting discovering and creating an American style of string playing in the process. The style and musical results are born out of the melting pot. It involves journey, movement and wide-open spaces of both landscape and musical optimism. The place where musical environments meet is what I am known for, and what appears to be a growing trend in the successful performing musician today.
My career provides many examples such as the case of jazz meeting with fiddling creating Texas-Style Fiddling or contest fiddling; jazz meeting Bluegrass to create "newgrass; and classical meeting fiddling to create the Appalachia Waltz projects with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, my concertos, string quartets, solo violin pieces and piano trios, the fiddle traditions can instruct and enhance the new ideas and concepts of making string playing work within the environments we find ourselves today.
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