The Park City Institute

Presents

Mark O’Connor’s

Appalachian Christmas

Theater

The Eccles Center is the largest theater in Park City, Utah with 1,269 seats. It is home to Park City Institute's Main Stage Season from October through April each year, presenting a broad range of world-class performing arts from international dance companies to Broadway icons to beloved author/humorists to virtuosos in a host of musical styles from Chamber Music to rock'n'roll.

Health and Safety

The Park City Institute and the Park City School District have taken measures to assure the health and safety of our patrons, staff, and performers. These include updated HVAC, touchless restrooms, electronic ticketing, electronic programs, all volunteers and staff to be fully vaccinated, enhanced cleaning, and empty seats. We ask that all patrons arrive at the theater wearing a mask and keep it on until seated and whenever moving about the building.

An Appalachian Christmas

Grammy-winning composer and fiddler Mark O’Connor has created several arrangements of Christmas classics and fashions a wondrous mixture of both instrumental and vocal music in bluegrass and other American music genres. Concertgoers are treated to fresh takes on traditional songs with a few original compositions included. His renditions are playful and joyous but can be strikingly earnest too.

Having toured An Appalachian Christmas for ten years, O’Connor and his ensemble have dynamic energy on stage that brings their individual expertise to holiday themes and classics in the most delightful and musically satisfying way! Mark O’Connor’s touring ensemble includes his wife Maggie O’Connor on fiddle and vocals as well his son Forrest O'Connor on mandolin, guitar, and vocals.

Mark O’Connor’s An Appalachian Christmas album (2011) reached the #1 ranking on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album charts. Hailed by critics from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times as a top 10 album of the holiday season, it has become a perennial classic Christmas recording.

“All Christmas music should be played so elegantly on violin" -- Boston Globe

"Heavenly" - Associated Press

“Elegant” – New York Times

MARK O’Connor

Mark O'Connor began his creative journey at the feet of American fiddling legend Benny Thomasson, and the iconic French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Now, at age 59, he has melded these influences into a new American classical music, and is perpetuating his vision of an American School of String Playing. Mr. O’Connor has won three Grammys, seven CMA awards as well as several national fiddle, guitar and mandolin champion titles. His distinguished career includes representing the United States Information Agency in cultural diplomacy to six continents and performing in front of several U.S. presidents including being invited to the White House by President Ronald Reagan to perform as a teen.

After recording a series of albums for Rounder and Warner Bros including his multiple Grammy-winning New Nashville Cats, his recordings for Sony Classical with Yo-Yo Ma, Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey sold a million CDs and gained O'Connor worldwide recognition as a leading proponent of a new American musical idiom.

Mr. O’Connor’s Fiddle Concerto released on Warner Bros. has become the most-performed violin concerto composed in the last 50 years. On his own OMAC Records label, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra recorded his sweeping Americana Symphony while his groundbreaking 9th concerto, The Improvised Violin Concerto was recorded in Boston Symphony Hall. The Mark O’Connor Band consisting of family members (wife, son and daughter-in-law) debuted at #1 on Billboard Magazine’s bluegrass album chart and their first album Coming Home won a Grammy in 2017. The band released a live album called A Musical Legacy. Mr. O’Connor’s new solo guitar album Markology II is a 42-year sequel to the first one released when he was 16. Bela Fleck writes the album notes for the new CD. He says:

“...a bit stunned at the shear technical bravado his guitar playing is capable of (including that bit of jealousy that I’ve always had at how well this guy’s hands work!). Great tone he pulls from his guitars...puts us mortal musicians into a state of awe.”

Mr. O’Connor has authored a series of educational books called the O’Connor Method and is now the fastest-growing violin method in the country and tens of thousands can credit the O’Connor books for learning how to play stringed instruments. The O’Connor Method features American music styles, creativity, cultural diversity and western classical technical training. Mr. O’Connor tours nationally as the Mark O’Connor Duo with his wife Maggie, with his perennial An Appalachian Christmas and performs his original concertos with symphony orchestras. He resides in North Carolina with his wife and duo partner Maggie O’Connor. For more information, please see www.markoconnor.com and www.oconnormethod.com.

Maggie O’Connor

Violinist and American fiddler Maggie O'Connor performs a variety of musical styles throughout the U.S. and beyond, most recently as a member of the Grammy Award-winning Mark O'Connor Band. Frequently performing with her husband, violinist, and composer Mark O'Connor, together they have appeared as guest soloists with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Walla Walla Symphony, the Nashville Symphony with the O'Connor Band, and many other symphony orchestras performing his compositions ranging from his Strings and Threads Suite to his Double Violin Concerto and Johnny Appleseed Suite.

The couple has also performed violin duos around the world, including the Leopold Auer Music Academy Hungary as well as the Berlin Konzerthaus celebrating the centennial birthday of the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Maggie was a member of the O'Connor Band, whose debut album Coming Home won a Grammy Award for "Best Bluegrass Album of the Year" in 2017 at the 59th Grammy Awards. Along with the Mark O’Connor Duo, Maggie has also frequently performed in her husband’s ensembles ranging from Hot Swing and An Appalachian Christmas, a hit concert tour taking place each holiday season.

Maggie continues to work as co-director with Mark at O'Connor Method String Camps featuring the lesson book series that is rising in popularity each year. Maggie also makes unique violin peg necklaces to raise funds for scholarships at these camps. She is also featured on her and her husband's album Duo, in which David McGee of Deep Roots Magazine claims; "As a technician and as an expressive player, she is formidable, has it all. What I find so special about her, apart from the sheer soulfulness abundant in the music she makes, is her uncanny sense of playing off of and with Mark, knowing when to assert herself and when to be empathetic and supportive."

Growing up in a musical family in the suburbs of Atlanta GA, Maggie started playing the violin at age 7 in a family band. Concurrently, she took classical violin lessons with Larisa Morgulis, a distinguished graduate of the Odessa Conservatory in Ukraine. Playing music with her family band is where Maggie began to develop an ear for arranging, recording, group playing, and improvisation; skills she has embraced throughout her musical life. In her early years, she was a member of numerous bluegrass and rock bands while also being a member and soloist with Atlanta's top three youth orchestras.

After growing up playing American and classical music styles, Maggie continued her professional training at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University where she studied with violinist Herbert Greenberg earning the Bachelor and the Master of Music degrees in violin performance. She was also a finalist in the Marbury Prize Competition for Undergraduate Violinists while finishing up her Bachelor's degree with distinction and had the honor of being accepted into the Five Year Advanced Degree Program along with being awarded the Career Development Grant while at Peabody. She was the recipient of full-tuition scholarships while studying at the Aspen Music Festival and School for three years. Maggie currently resides in North Carolina with her husband and plays a beautifully handcrafted 1996 violin made by Lukas Wronski.

Forrest O’Connor

Nashville-born singer-songwriter and guitarist Forrest O’Connor earned national recognition as one of the lead vocalists and instrumentalists in the O’Connor Band, a group he co-founded with his wife, Kate Lee O’Connor, and his father, seven-time CMA Award-winning violinist Mark O’Connor. Forrest wrote several songs, including the title track, for the O’Connor Band’s debut album Coming Home, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums Chart and won a Grammy Award in 2017. Most recently, he arranged and contributed a track to the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Vol. 1 tribute album, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2021.

Both independently and as part of the O’Connor Band, Forrest has performed and/or recorded with Paul Simon, Zac Brown, Judah & The Lion, Kenny Loggins, Clint Black, Emmylou Harris, Suzy Bogguss, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Dan Tyminski, and many others. He has played several times at The Grand Ole Opry as well as at other notable venues and festivals around the country, including Fenway Park, the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards Ceremony, the Strathmore Center for the Arts, RockyGrass Festival, DelFest, and Grey Fox. He also appeared in the final episode of the fourth season of ABC’s hit series Nashville, performing behind Chris Carmack’s character, Will Lexington.

Prior to the O’Connor Band, Forrest toured nationally as a duo with Kate (sometimes along with his college buddy, singer-songwriter Jim Shirey) and frequently performed as a sideman at The Station Inn in Nashville. In 2014, he won the Tennessee State Mandolin Championship.

After more than a year off due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Forrest is touring again during the second half of 2021, accompanied by two-time national mandolin champion Isaac Eicher.

The 2021-22 Main Stage Series is made possible with the generous support from the following individuals and organizations:

John & Jean Yablonski, Shawn Fojtik, Rachel and Robert Alday, Holly Etlin & Andrew Krieger, the KTC Fund, Robin Hauser, Terry Homer & Ann Marie Horner, Cole Sport, PBS Utah, The Park City Community Foundation, and the Utah Division of Arts & Museums