DESCRIPTION:
Americana Symphony "Variations on Appalachia Waltz"

In 2009, Mark O'Connor made history by being the first violin player or fiddle player in several decades to compose a "symphony." O'Connor's Americana Symphony was premiered at the Cabrillo Music Festival, a contemporary music festival in Santa Cruz to a rousing standing ovation! The Americana Symphony quickly was selected by the venerable Baltimore Symphony and conductor Marin Alsop for recording. The music can be purchased at the Mark O'Connor Digital Music Store at www.markoconnor.com

A Journey Through the Soul of America. Mark O'Connor talks about he created his Symphony. "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 monumental work...inevitably will be compared to Copland" -Associated Press "as unrepentantly tonal, accessibly melodic and sonically spacious as a great Elmer Bernstein film score" -Los Angeles Times "This is one of the most enjoyable contemporary orchestral CD's heard in quite some time." -ConcertoNet.com - The Classical Music Network "Mark O'Connor provides his answer to a question that has intrigued U. S. composers since the debut of Dvorak's New World Symphony in 1892: "How do you write the great American Symphony?" -David Wallace- Juilliard School

The symphony is scored for large symphony orchestra: 3333/4331/Timp/Perc(3)Pno/Harp+Strings. The music is available to perform, rental copies as well as PDFs are available by going to www.markoconnorcom (sheet music page), Projects page for a free orchestral downloadable score, or write to us about rentals on the contact page.

On O'Connor's 'Appalachia Waltz'
"What Bach did was, he took all these dances from all the known world around him and put them in suite form. Old dances, new dances, courtly dances, peasant dances. And what Mark did was, he took this piece that is somewhat based on the Norwegian fiddling style, with the drone and that, wrote it in Santa Fe, and called it `Appalachia Waltz.' It's just so moving. It's traditional. It is new. It comes from many different places, but it's authentic. So after a long Bach evening, rather than play more Bach, this is the perfect thing." -Yo-Yo Ma


For more information on Mark O'Connor, String Camps, The O'Connor Method, ensembles, repertoire, sheet music and more, please visit http://www.markoconnor.com

For More YouTubes of Mark O'Connor's music:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarkOConnor

https://twitter.com/#!/markoconnor35
http://www.facebook.com/markoconnorfanpage