Mark O'Connor
 Violinist and composer Mark’O’Connor is widely recognized as one of the most gifted contemporary composers in America and surely one of the brightest talents of his generation. Both a folk fiddler and concert violinist, O’Connor’s 30-year repertoire includes just about everything from jazz to traditional folk music to classical composition. Mark O’Connor is no stranger to Washington, having performed at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, and the White House. He is no stranger to Kentucky, either, where he has shared the stage with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. O’Connor’s discography is extensive. He has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, Roseanne Cash, Edgar Meyer, and Wynton Marsalis. His performance for Our Lincoln will include a medley with the Ashokan Farewell, made famous as the theme of Ken Burns’ PBS series The Civil War, Appalachian Waltz, O’Connor’s original composition inspired by the coal mining country of eastern Kentucky, and Amazing Grace. Described in a feature in the New York Times as “….the only musician today who can reach so deeply first into the refined, then the vernacular, giving his listeners a complex, sophisticated piece of early 21st-century classical music and then knocking them dead with the brown-dirt whine of a Texas fiddle.” |
