Videos

Mark and Maggie 

The story of Mark and Maggie - the charming, talented, successful American fiddler and composer and the young, strikingly beautiful violinist with the fastest fingers in the West.  They fell in love after playing violin together at a New York City gala in the Spring of 2014.  They married shortly after and have been inseparable since.  They were drawn to each other by their love of American string styles and how well they could play Mark’s own violin duo pieces together.  They loved traveling and performing, so it was a match made in heaven.  Initially there were no plans to record an album, but in their travels, a concert hall became available to record and a duo was put on tape, and then another, and so on.  Within a couple of months, fourteen duos were recorded.

The results are remarkable.  At times in this recording it is hard to tell the two violinists apart.  They are able to reach such closeness, intuitiveness and duo perfection by listening carefully to each other, responding to the emotional contents of the material and loving these American styles of music.  Audiences everywhere have been entirely engaged with the quality of these musical arrangements as well as the couple's lively performances on stage and in their videos.  The easy interaction and playfulness they have with each other is both enchanting and entertaining.  The chemistry can certainly be heard on this recording as well as be seen on several companion videos created for this project. Perhaps being a married couple did add to the magic of these sessions?  Regardless, the storybook violin collaboration and this singular album captivates one's attention to the two violins, and that is what they both wished for.  Performing new arrangements of great American classics, we introduce you to Mark and Maggie O'Connor!

About the O’Connor Violin Duos

For violinists there is the “Bible,” and that is J. S. Bach’s solo violin repertoire: the Bach Partitas and Sonatas for solo violin.  For us Hungarian violinists, there is another essential and indispensable collection: Béla Bartók’s 44 Violin Duos.  As he often expressed, Bartók regarded not only the Hungarian, but also the Romanian and Slovak folk music as the source of his composing mastery. He used original folk material of these nations alongside his original themes in creating his famous Duos.  He wanted to place this invaluable treasure in the hands of young violinists, giving them the opportunity to play them together as it happened in real life in the villages all around Hungary.

Mark O’Connor's Duos also send the important message that there is a rich and exciting world that is worth being known widely, and this is the American fiddling, the American folk music with its different styles and moods, and what violinists should learn through playing them together, exactly as playing the Bartók Duos.  The roots of Mark O’Connor's compositions are in the traditional American fiddling styles, and I am sure his unique and excellent settings will serve the same goal that Bartók’s Duos serve.  Being a concert violinist and university violin pedagogue, I welcome the birth of these fantastic O’Connor Duos and wish great success for them!

Péter Kováts, Bartók-Pásztory Award winner violinist, Hungary