Mark O’Connor, six-time CMA Musician Of The Year, returns to CCA
Eight days after Mark O’Connor and his band perform at the University of Maine, their 12-song “Coming Home” album could take home Best Bluegrass Album at the Grammy Awards.
The O’Connor Band, which fuses country, acoustic pop, folk, classical and Americana, plays at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4 at the Collins Center for the Arts. The 59th annual Grammy Awards will be celebrated Feb. 12 in Los Angeles.
The band includes four talented members of the O’Connor family — Mark, fiddler; Maggie O’Connor, fiddler; Forrest O’Connor, mandolin player and vocalist; and Kate Lee, fiddler and vocalist. Joe Smart, the 2005 national flatpick guitar champion, and Geoff Saunders, double bassist and old-time banjo player, also are bandmates.
This is a return visit for Mark O’Connor, who performed at UMaine in 2015. O’Connor, who developed an instructional playing method for string instruments, was inspired at age 8 to play the fiddle when he watched Cajun musician Doug Kershaw perform on “The Johnny Cash Show.” His parents bought him a fiddle for $50 at a pawnshop.
O’Connor is a former national champion on the fiddle, guitar and mandolin and he won a record-breaking six consecutive Country Music Association Musician Of The Year Awards from 1991 to 1996. He has sold more than 2 million CDs as a solo recording artist and in a three-year period as a session musician, he recorded more than 500 albums with Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Randy Travis, The Judds and others. And, he already has won two Grammy Awards.
Tickets for The O’Connor Band featuring Mark O’Connor are $29 for balcony seats, $37 for orchestra seats and $6 for K–12 students. Tickets may be ordered online. Orders that include K–12 tickets must be purchased in person or by calling 581.1755 and picked up at the box office the night of the performance. Anyone requesting an accommodation also may call.
Categories: Campus announcements; Arts