The Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra opens season with 'Red, White & Blue Jeans,' featuring violinist and composer Mark O'Connor
Casual tone Concert may take blue jeans approach; featured artist won't
- By Roger McBain
- Evansville Courier & Press
- Posted September 9, 2010 at midnight
The conductor and orchestra will dress in denim, and they're encouraging the audience to don dungarees. The featured guest artist for the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra's all-American season opener, "Red, White & Blue Jeans," won't be following suit, however.
Composer and performer Mark O'Connor isn't being a sartorial snob, he says - just a dutiful son.
"My mother, may she rest in peace, told me never to wear blue jeans on stage," he explained in a phone interview from his home in New York, "so I never have."
Courtesy of markoconnor.com Mark O'Connor and Kelly Hall-Tompkins will perform together in O'Connor's Double Violin Concerto as part of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra's first concert of the new season, Saturday, at The Victory.
Courtesy of markoconnor.com Mark O'Connor
Courtesy of Chris Lee Kelly Hall-Tomkins Courtesy of www.markoconnor.com
That said, O'Connor appreciates and embraces the concept behind the concert's theme, dressing down the image of orchestral music as some highfalutin European art form that demands tuxes and tails.
While he's never performed in blue jeans, the 49-year-old musician, composer and recording artist has devoted most of his career to razing musical barriers and championing American string music that came from the plantations, honky-tonks and coffee houses.
The Seattle native began as a child prodigy on guitar, playing folk, classical and flamenco styles, winning his first competition at the age of 10.
He added the violin and won his first fiddle contest at age 12. By the time he'd graduated from high school, O'Connor had won major fiddle competitions across the country and had recorded four albums.
Over the ensuing decades, he's developed an eclectic repertoire, playing with other musicians and arranging, composing, recording and performing music that embraces folk, classical, jazz, swing, bluegrass and blues.
He's performed across the country and around the world with country, folk, jazz and classical players, including Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Chet Atkins, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Randy Travis, Pinchas Zukerman, Jean-Luc Ponty, Stephane Grapelli and Yo-Yo Ma.
O'Connor has focused on traditional American string music to develop his own violin teaching method that The New Yorker magazine called "an American grown rival to the Suzuki method," incorporating folk fiddling, jazz stylings and other American forms.
O'Connor will discuss his music and America's rich string tradition at 2 p.m. Friday in the Rice Library's second-floor reading room at the University of Southern Indiana.
O'Connor, who has sold more than 2 million recordings as a solo artist, has contributed to America's string repertoire with compositions that include his Fiddle Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (which he performed with the Evansville Philharmonic in 1998), "American Seasons: Seasons of an American Life," and "Americana Symphony: Variations on Appalachia Waltz," which an Associated Press reviewer wrote would "inevitably be compared to (music of Aaron) Copland."
Saturday's concert will feature O'Connor's Double Concert for Two Violins and the first six movements of his Strings & Threads Suite; the program also will include music by Copland, Charles Gershwin and Charles Ives.
O'Connor and award-winning violinist Kelly Hall-Tomkins will play together and duel with one another in the Double Violin Concerto, which incorporates blues and jazz into the symphonic arena.
His Strings & Threads Suite selections represent the evolution of American folk music, but also mirror his own family's migration from Ireland and Holland to the United States, sid O'Connor.
His mother can rest easy about his attire. "I'll probably wear slacks," he said, "but I won't wear a suit and tie, if everybody else is wearing jeans."
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IF YOU GO
What: Violinists Mark O'Connor and Kelly Hall-Tompkins will perform works by O'Connor with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra in the orchestra's opening concert of the 2010-2011 season. The program, "Red, White & Blue Jeans," will include music by Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin.
When: Box office opens 6 p.m. performance begins at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The Victory
Tickets: $25 to $60 for adults, $15 to $60 for children 12 and younger, $13 at the door for students after 7 p.m. Season tickets are still available.
Information: Call 425-5050 for reservations or information or go to www.evansville
philharmonic.org online.
Broadcast: A digital recording of the concert will air at 7 p.m., Sept. 26, on WNIN 88.3FM
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