Grammy Award-winner Mark O’Connor and his String Quartet are ready to kick off the McNeese State University Banners Cultural
Series at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23, in McNeese’s F.G. Bulber Auditorium.
Quartet members include: Mark O’Connor, violin; Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin; Gillian Gallagher, viola; and Patrice Jackson,
cello.
O’Connor is a multi Grammy
Award-winning composer, violinist and fiddler and has sold 2 million CDs
as a solo artist. He collaborated
with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer on “Appalachia Waltz,” and the works
O’Connor composed for the disc, including its title track,
gained him worldwide recognition as a leading proponent of a new
American musical idiom. The tremendously successful follow-up
release, “Appalachian Journey,” received a Grammy Award.
At age 13, he was the youngest person
ever to win the Grand Master Fiddler Championships competing against all
ages, amateur
and professional. Thirty-seven years later, his record still
stands. O’Connor is still the only person to ever win national
titles (open to all ages) on fiddle, bluegrass guitar and mandolin
and he won an unprecedented six Country Music Association
Musician of the Year Awards in a row. He has played as a member of
several bands — the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, Strength
in Numbers, The American Music Shop house band and New Nashville
Cats. He became the most in-demand session musician of any
instrument and in any genre for a three-year period, appearing on
more top 10 hits in the country, recording over 500 albums.
The O’Connor String Quartet is the
first of 20 performances and lectures included in the 2013 Banners
Series season. Performances
will continue through May 4.
Tickets to individual performances will
be available at the door at $20 for adults, $5 for students and free to
McNeese and
Sowela students with IDs. Lectures are free to the public. People
can join by calling the Banners office at 337-475-5123 or
visiting the Banners website at www.banners.org.