Mark O'Connor

on Mark O’Connor’s Americana Symphony
“a monumental work...inevitably will be compared to Copland”

– Associated Press

“...with O’Connor’s fire and heart-on-the-sleeve emotional involvement rendering this is not only one of the finest discs of his career, but one of the greatest jazz violin albums ever. Grappelli, who died four years go, would have blushed with pride.”

– David Royko, Chicago Tribune

“Mark's arrangements are probably some of the most widely copied in all of string music.”

– John Hartford

February 2002 On Mark O'Connor's first masterclass at Juilliard School, making his the first non traditional masterclass on a string instrument in Juilliard's history.
"It was an inspiring class."

– Stephen Clapp, Dean of Juilliard School

“I'm listening to Amazing Grace again for the first time in a while – and your playing is positively orchestral… so gorgeous – the audience at that point will want me to shut up so they can listen to you….we'll do the long version, where you play an entire verse first – and perhaps more….”

– Renee Fleming (comments in preparing their duet of Amazing Grace for a Carnegie Hall concert)

“I have been listening to your discs...they're fantastic and inspiring. (As are you!) I can't wait to hear your additional string quartets.”

– Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Jennifer Higdon

Remark about Mark O'Connor's composition Appalachia Waltz at the White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy
“One of the most important pieces of American music in many, many years, uniting the strains of classical music with American hill country music, which is an important part of my heritage.”

– President William Jefferson Clinton

On the inaugural Mark O’Connor String Camp in New York City
“I have become more inspired and in-touch with the music around me like never before. It really touches me to hear you talk about this camp because I know that you really started it for us. You, sir, have achieved this week more than you may know.”

– Student

“Gershwin once told Maurice Ravel that his dream was to become a second Ravel....to which Ravel replied that he should instead become the first Gershwin....which he did.....and you are already the first Mark O’Connor!”

– Jean-Luc Ponty

on American Seasons (Seasons Of An American Life) For Violin String Orchestra
“If Dvorak had spent his American leisure time in Nashville instead of Spillville, Iowa, his New World Symphony might have sounded like this.”

– The New York Times

“Americana Symphony" may well be regarded one day as one of this country's great gifts to the classical music canon, as well as being a pivotal moment in the rise of the new American classical music”

– David McGee
(Spin, Rolling Stone, Barnesandnoble.com, BluegrassSpecial.com)

“A fiddler who fuses folk and classical...Mark O'Connor, also a composer, goes places Copland did not.”

– David Patrick Stearns – The Philadelphia Inquirer  

“...with Mark, there's so little impedance between what comes out and what he's actually thinking. That's one of the qualities that floors people. It's his pure thinking.  It just comes out.  ”

– Yo-Yo Ma (Reported by the Baltimore Sun)

“Spectacular.  I am so grateful for those who stand up and do it right.”

– Twyla Tharp

“Mark O’Connor-he’s not what you would call ... human.”

– Stephane Grappelli

On the O'Connor Method Teacher Training Course
“We're at the tipping point! Hooray for the American School!”

– Teacher Trainer

“It was an honor and pleasure for us to play with you and experience the power and depth of your musical vision. I have the deepest respect for you and what you are trying to achieve on behalf of American Music. You are a national treasure.”

– Wynton Marsalis

“Love your Americana Symphony and your Concerto #6 CD- it's dynamite!”

– Pulitzer Prize Winning Composer, Joseph Schwantner

On The O’Connor Violin Method

“O’Connor’s new approach is ‘an American-grown rival to the Suzuki method.’”

– The New Yorker

“Mark is so facile with his instrument and so completely on top of it. He’s really one in a million. We won't see a lot more like him in this generation.”

– James Taylor

“Concise, lyrical and irresistibly rhythmic. (O'Connor) used his fabulous instrumental mastery of articulation and intonation to create character, setting, story, and emotion.”

– The Boston Globe

About American Seasons for violin and orchestra
“O'Connor the composer has now created a work destined to rank among the greatest masterpieces of American music.”

– The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Mark O'Connor has been astounding listeners with his genius since he was 13. I believe he and Itzhak Perlman are two of the greatest musicians on the planet today. He's one of the few people I pay to go see.”

– Chet Atkins