Ecstatic Living Room

20 Questions with…composer and violinist Mark O’Connor

Mark O’Connor is a composer and violinist whose fluency with both classical and American traditions has made him one of the most acclaimed figures in contemporary music. In October 2008, O’Connor began a year as the first Artist in Residence at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, and in November, gave a two-day residency at Philadelphia’s Curtis School of Music. O’Connor takes educating the next generation of musicians seriously – his annual String Camps provide hundreds of students with intensive training from O’Connor and some of the world's finest performers and teachers. His Americana Symphony, “Variations on Appalachia Waltz,” was recently recorded by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop conducting, and will be released March 10, 2009 by OMAC Records.

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