Grammy winner coming to area

PARKERSBURG -Grammy Award-winning violin/fiddle composer Mark O'Connor will perform with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra-Parkersburg at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14, at the Blennerhassett School Auditorium on Jewell Road south of Parkersburg.

Tickets for the concert are $15 for adults and $8 for students. Ticket information is available by calling (304) 485-4200 or by visiting the symphony's website at www.wvsop.org. Tickets will also be available at the door until 2:30 p.m. the day of the concert.

O'Connor will be performing his self-composed "Fiddle Concerto." In addition, the program will include the world premiere of Maestro Grant Cooper's "Appalachian Autumn," as well as Johannes Brahms' "Symphony No. 4."

With more than 200 performances, O'Connor's first full-length orchestral score "Fiddle Concerto" has become the most-performed modern violin concerto composed in the last 40 years.

O'Connor is an accomplished bluegrass, country and classical fiddler and music teacher. He has received numerous awards for both his playing and his composition. As a teenager, he won national string instrument championships for his virtuoso playing of the guitar and mandolin as well as on the fiddle. His mentors include Texas old-time fiddler Benny Thomasson who taught O'Connor to fiddle as a teenager, French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli with whom O'Connor toured as a teenager and guitarist Chet Atkins.

O'Connor has won two Grammy awards - one for his"New Nashville Cats" album and another for his"Appalachian Journey" album he did with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer. He was named Musician of the Year by the Country Music Association six years in a row, from 1991 to 1996. His collaborative single "Restless" with Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and Steve Wariner won the 1991 CMA Vocal Event of the Year award.

The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra-Parkersburg welcomes patrons with disabilities.