Published: October 28, 2009 02:43 am      

Audio Slide Show: A musical legacy

Passing it on is important to world-renowned violinist

One of the leading violinists in the world was in Ashland on Tuesday to perform with a group of college students.

Mark O’Connor, whose career has spanned musical genres ranging from classical to country, played a concert at the Paramount Arts Center with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor John Nardolillo, as part of his weeklong residency at the UK School of Music.

The performance is one of two planned as part of the residency. The other will be Friday at the Singletary Center for the Arts in Lexington.

In a backstage interview prior to the performance at the Paramount, the 48-year-old O’Connor — who was born in Seattle and lives in New York City — said residencies like the one he’s doing at UK were his way of passing along some of the things he has learned throughout his career with a generation of younger musicians.

“I really love playing with orchestras, and also love the educational aspects of it, being able to interact with the students and share with them my musical journey,” he said.

O’Connor said he also enjoyed playing with younger musicians because they tend to have a “creative energy” that drives him. In fact, he said he tended to gravitate toward players less than half his age in his own ensembles.

O’Connor said his collaboration with UK came about as a result of him having worked in the past with Nardolillo. He appeared in February with the UK Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C., as part of the “Our Lincoln” concert presented by the Kentucky Humanities Council.

Tuesday’s concert featured several of O’Connor’s original compositions. He said the students in the orchestra began working on his music in preparation for his residency in March.

O’Connor began playing music at age 5. He started with the guitar, but switched fiddle after falling in love with instrument because of the “depth of expression” he saw as being possible with it.

Plus, he said he liked the instrument’s easy portability, and the fact it could be used to play just about any genre of music.

O’Connor’s early mentors included French jazz violinist Stephane Grapelli, with whom he later collaborated, and old-time Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson.

There has been little O’Connor hasn’t accomplished during his career. His Fiddle Concerto has been performed more than 200 times, making it one of the most performed concertos written in the past 50 years.

He won two Grammy Awards, one for an album with the New Nashville Cats and another for an album with cellist Yo Yo Ma and bassist Edgar Meyer. As a Nashville session musician, he played on more than 450 albums during the 1980s and 1990s, and was named Musician of the Year by the Country Music Association for six years in a row.

The list of artists with whom O’Connor has played reads like a Who’s Who of popular music for the past 30 years or so — Chet Atkins, James Taylor, Alison Krauss, Tony Rice, Bela Fleck and Wynton Marsalis are just a few of them.

O’Connor said he didn’t see himself returning to the grind of studio work again, mainly because he was enjoying life as a solo artist too much.

Prior to Tuesday’s performance, 0’Connor also showed off another project he said he was a labor of love — a pair of instructional manuals on the violin intended for younger players that he said will be released in a couple of weeks.

The book includes a lot of historical information about the violin: Did you know Davy Crockett and Thomas Jefferson both played the instrument? It’s also illustrated with photos of the author as child.

One of those pictures shows O’Connor seated in a chair practicing his instrument, while a black cat perched on the chair back above his shoulder bats at his bow.

“That’s one of the hazards” of being a fiddler, he said with a laugh.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.