Arts & Lectures
2005-2006 Performing Arts Season News Release
For Immediate Release

April 11, 2006

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents gifted composer
and fiddling virtuoso Mark O’Connor
to perform with his Appalachia Waltz Trio at Rockwood

Summary Facts:

Brilliant composer/violinist Mark O’Connor, who made history alongside Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer playing his chamber-inspired Americana music, will bring his Appalachia Waltz Trio to Rockwood, Santa Barbara Women’s Club, for an afternoon that promises to be what The New York Times has called “one of the most spectacular journeys in recent American music.” O’Connor, along with cellist Natalie Haas and violist Carol Cook, will perform new work—including a piece commissioned by A&L—and repertoire from his best-selling CDs Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey.

O’Connor has studied under the guidance of such diverse mentors as Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson and French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. Cultivating his own rich, varied sound and expert technique, O’Connor incorporates into his work the influences of America’s aural folk tradition and has molded these inspirations into a new American classical music, for which The New York Times regards him as, “a polystylist who refuses to be tied down to any one genre.”

The works O’Connor composed for Appalachia Waltz, including its title track, gained him worldwide recognition as a leading proponent of a new American musical idiom. The tremendously successful follow-up release, Appalachian Journey, also recorded with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, received a Grammy Award in February 2001.

Acclaimed for his exceptional accomplishments as a composer, renowned for his stylistic versatility and regarded by some as a direct cultural descendant of America’s 18th century musicians, O’Connor’s Americana musical sensibilities have been highly sought after. After being approached by the producers of a six-part PBS documentary on the American Revolution, O’Connor created the album Liberty!, featuring his arrangements of a variety of traditional American music and expansive original orchestral works. In 2000, composer John Williams also called on O’Connor’s expertise and knowledge of the period to contribute solo instrumentalist talents to the Oscar-nominated score of The Patriot. O’Connor was also invited to contribute to the soundtrack of the Ron Maxwell film, Gods and Generals, in 2003.

In 2002, O’Connor formed a new chamber ensemble, the Appalachia Waltz Trio, featuring cellist Natalie Haas and violist Carol Cook. The Appalachia Waltz Trio released its first album, Crossing Bridges, in 2004 on the OMAC recording label.

Cook and Haas lend their own remarkable accomplishments and expertise to the ensemble, serving to further diversify and enrich the trio’s eclectic contribution to the new American classical genre. Cook began her musical training on the violin at the age of three. She studied at the Oberlin Conservatory and received a Masters Degree from the Julliard School. Cook is a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi, performs regularly with the New York Philharmonic and has played with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and is the guest Principal Violist on the Cardiff Bay Chamber Orchestra. Haas, a cellist since age nine, is a student of Fred Sherry at the Julliard School and has been a featured cellist with the 100-member San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers orchestra. Haas plays with the piano quintet Polaris and the Julliard Symphony. In 2003, she was the winner of the first Alternative Styles Awards competition at the American Strings Teachers Association national convention.

Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio concerts are the third in a series of three performances in UCSB Arts & Lectures’ 2005-2006 performing arts season held in conjunction with the distinguished Los Angeles-based Chamber Music in Historic Sites® in association with the Pearl Chase Society. This five year-old partnership allows Arts & Lectures to travel to unique and intimate environments to celebrate the experience of music in sacred, social and architectural contexts. Rockwood, the Santa Barbara Woman’s Club, opened in 1928 and was chiefly designed by the team of Edwards and Plunkett, best known for the Arlington Theatre. This gracious Spanish revival style clubhouse is modeled on a California hacienda surrounded by verandas and terraces and provides a distinct Old World charm.

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Mark O’Connor’s Appalachia Waltz Trio by agreement with Chamber Music in Historic Sites®—a nationally licensed series; Dr. MaryAnn Bonino, president and founder—and is sponsored by the Santa Barbara Independent. Thanks to the Pearl Chase Society for its support. This project is funded in part by the Organizational Development Program using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission. O’Connor’s residency is supported by the Arts Education Outreach Program of the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation. Tickets are $40 for the general public and $19 for UCSB students who must show valid ID at ticket purchase and at the show. Ticket includes a reception with the artists.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Colleen Debler at (805) 893-2098.

©2006 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara