A Mark O’Connor Christmas

Pollstar called up O’Connor before he embarked on the third annual Appalachian Christmas Tour, which kicked off Tuesday in Greenville, N.C.

The violinist is joined on tour by a group of musicians including Cia Cherryholmes of bluegrass band Cherryholmes, fiddler/vocalist Carrie Rodriguez, guitarist Joe Smart and bassist Michael Rinne. Plus, it will be a family affair, with O’Connor’s wife, Maggie, on violin on select dates and his son Forrest on mandolin/vocals.  

Audiences will be treated to many selections from 2011’s An Appalachian Christmas, which features O’Connor’s take on holiday classics including “Silent Night,” “Carol of the Bells,” and “The Christmas Song,” along with a few additional tracks like the traditional song “Ol’ Blue” and O’Connor’s 1992 single “Now It Belongs To You.”   

Not only is O’Connor passionate about playing Appalachian music, but he’s also a big advocate for sharing the joy of learning an instrument.  The violinist discussed his American school of string playing – the O’Connor Method – and just how special the gift of music can be for children and their families.

Last year’s Appalachian Christmas tour was a near sellout.

Yeah, we had some great crowds. Some of the biggest crowds I’ve had as a solo artist were on these Appalachian Christmas tours.

For someone who hasn’t listened to your album yet or been to one of the shows, how would you describe the tour?   

Well, I was able to use An Appalachian Christmas as the third trifecta album release of my Appalachian series, which started with Appalachia Waltz, then Appalachian Journey. It has that classical elegance, blended and mixed with bluegrass themes and instrumentation – mandolin, guitar, singing. And a little bit of hot swing thrown in there. My Christmases growing up as a child are very accurately reflected in my Christmas project, which is a variety of Christmas music that you would find in a very musical household. If you went to any Americana music household during Christmas, chances are you would have a playlist that was very similar to the one that I released, which would include some Christmas carols, some secular music, some bluegrass, some fiddling and some popular renditions and some jazz. And so that’s exactly what I’ve done with An Appalachian Christmas, really embody that type of Christmas musical household that I grew up on. Yeah, we played Christmas songs during Christmas but we also had bluegrass jam sessions and played swing tunes during Christmas too. So it kind of has that effect of Christmas and beyond, so even people who are not completely into listening to Christmas music wall to wall will still have a lot to like about this show and this album.

Having the tour reflect what you grew up listening to probably makes the tour extra special to you.

Yeah, and a matter of fact, I can remember some of the years when the majority of my presents were actual LP albums packaged under the tree and of course, the vast majority of those albums were not Christmas albums. They were albums that I had been wanting and asking for, which usually included country music or jazz or bluegrass, fiddler music. So I couldn’t wait to put those on on Christmas day. Our household was filled with just a wonderful variety of music from the recordings and from us making it right there when friends would drop by on Christmas day.

Will you be accompanied by the same musicians that were on the first two tours?

We’ve got a few personnel changes but my three lead singers are the same – Carrie Rodriguez, Cia Cherryholmes and my son, Forrest O’Connor.  We’ve switched out a new position for guitar and bass. And we’re also adding a few special guests, including my wife, Maggie, who’s going to play violin on several of the pieces with me. And also Forrest’s girlfriend, Kate Lee, who’s going to sing and play violin as well. So we’re going to have a lot of string playing and singing. It’s going to be a really wonderful collection of musicians. Really, the talent leaping off the stage is really extraordinary for any kind of show, but especially for a Christmas show. People are just going to love it. And we filmed last year’s tour for a DVD, for our fans, so people will be able to bring this music home with a wonderful film production.

Is this the first time you’ve put out a DVD of the tour?

Yes. So we’ll still be selling An Appalachian Christmas, which is a fantastic thing for me. It’s becoming a bit of a holiday classic. … For the last three years it’s made the charts – the classical chart, the classical crossover, the bluegrass and the Appalachian chart, four or five different charts on Billboard. And the album itself has stellar guests like Renee Fleming and James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss and Steve Wariner and Jane Monheit and Sharon Isbin. Matter of fact, Sharon Isbin’s documentary of her life as a guitarist is airing on television this week. I’m being interviewed [in the film] and I contributed a piece to her Grammy-winning classical album. So she reciprocated and played on my Christmas album. So all these superstar friends on my album, An Appalachian Christmas, and all these really incredible young stars that are on the rise on my Christmas tour. So it’s the best of all worlds.

Wanted to talk a little bit about the setlist for the tour. Obviously you’ll be playing many of the songs from An Appalachian Christmas. Are you planning on adding any new songs that you haven’t done yet?

Yes, we’re going to add a few new things. We added a few last year that just worked out last year. We added “Linus and Lucy,” the Charlie Brown theme, and that worked out really well. We’re going to make a couple of bluegrass instrumentals out of “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty The Snowman.” Kind of turn them into bluegrass instrumentals with everyone taking a solo. We’re going to add a duet with Forrest and Kate, to feature their vocal stylings together. And that will be new. And then Maggie and I will play our standard Appalachian waltz, which is on the album and which we do a lot of anyway, but we’re going to add a duet of “Silent Night” to that. So that’s going to be really very sweet as well. … I think we’re going to probably be replacing out a few standards just to mix it up a little bit. … We’ll definitely be doing most of An Appalachian Christmas and we’ll be adding do that.

Do you have a favorite Christmas song – either a tune you grew up listening to or a favorite you like to perform?

You know, I’ve always liked “Silent Night” and matter of fact we’re going to be working up our duo version of that today. So that’s been on my mind, with Maggie and I. “Silent Night” has always been a favorite of mine. I love, one of my very favorites is “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.)” That just puts me in a really great holiday spirit as well for being a secular song. So those two I have an emotional connection to.

Looking at the itinerary for the tour, are there stops you’re especially looking forward to playing?

Yeah, we’re going to be able to play with the Mobile Alabama Symphony Orchestra on a couple nights on this tour. It’s always nice to put this sort of kind of acoustic bluegrass band on the stage with the orchestra for the holiday season. I like doing that and it’s a good experience for everyone involved – the musicians, the audience, and the administrative staff of the orchestra. Another fun one will be Seattle. This will be the third year [of the tour] but I haven’t played Seattle yet, which is my hometown. I think that will just be really very special. And there will be people there in the audience that remember me when I was a child. So it will be quite emotional.

Growing up, did your family have a favorite Christmas tradition or one you keep up now with your own family?

Yeah, I would say that the musical part of our Christmases that was the most exciting and the most traditional. We basically provided for our own entertainment. Rather than watching Christmas shows or specials we ended up playing music. And a lot of Christmas music is really fun to play and ad-lib on and even jam on. So putting this project together in this way really is a wonderful representation of how I feel the Christmas traditions were celebrated for so many hundreds of years in America. As the modern age came with television and radio, the Christmas thing got real packaged – and I mean, I like a lot of that too – but it feels good to put something out in concert that’s a little bit more loosely formed but at the very same time really, really poetic and beautiful. There’s so many tender and emotional moments in the music of this project that it’s hard pressed for the audience to come away saying that they’ve heard something more beautiful than these renditions …. great American instruments like the fiddle and the mandolin and the guitar and the banjo along with really great singing and a real multiplicity of culture and diversity that American music represents through the Christmas songs.

I’s really neat that through the tour you’re helping families today create their own traditions and making that really special connection with music.

That’s right. And I have the O’Connor Method and that’s to teach children how to play violin and string instruments using American music materials. While I’m still working on the most advanced books for the Method, I’ve got all the beginning and intermediate and lower advanced books out already available, but at some point I’ll probably add a whole Christmas book to it because all these children are coming to these concerts and they see us play Christmas music on the violin and they’ll want to be able to do that at home during Christmas. So we’re going to provide those materials as well in the coming two years.

We really promote the idea of family and nurturing creativity and ensemble and community with music education. It’s not just about being isolated in a practice room all day. It’s about being inspired by music and contributing to music in a creative way, in addition to your technical development. Playing during the holidays is a perfect time and place for that type of nurturing. So that’s what we’re going to do on the Christmas tour. We’re going to turn the lobby into a music education event. If somebody said to me, “What would be the best gift you can give during Christmas this year?” For me, it would be the gift of music. Have a family inspired by music by their children participating in music and playing it at their house and having friends over and playing together. That is truly a gift worth giving. … [After] we play our encore for the night, we’ll come out to the lobby and we’ll talk about music education. If you have a child out there who you really want to do something special for, send them to a music camp, send them to one of my music camps. We have five now in the summer. What a great gift. That’s a gift that could last a lifetime.

Rather than some toy that a kid might not even play with or might get rid of after a year.   

A fancy gizmo could be very nice – but think about these kids that will go to music camp and then maybe their lives are changed because of the music that they were able to be inspired by.

So after each show you’ll be down in the lobby talking to families?

Traditionally of course we go out in the lobby and sign CDs and say hello. But I’m thinking, why don’t we raise it a level or two? We’ll do that but at the same time we’ll talk about music education and how important that is to children and families. Especially at this time, during the season, when people are looking to give. Why not the gift of music and an instrument, something that a child could really treasure for their entire life, not just for a year of their childhood but something that could make a big impact on their entire lives. … Last year and some of the post-concert receptions were great. Many people stayed and they wanted to listen to this message of American music training, American school of string playing and the American system of learning how to play an instrument with creativity and improvisation along with technical training. It’s starting to really inspire a lot of people.

That’s a great way to wrap up the show.

We love it and it’s just been really rewarding. Right now tens of thousands of children are learning the O’Connor method. We have about a thousand certified teachers in my method and that’s growing every month. It’s growing bigger and bigger so it’s really exciting because we’ve never seen an American school of string playing formalized before. But it’s about time. A lot of people are teaching American music in schools and universities and conservatories [for] instruments like guitars or brass instruments or percussion but the violin has been largely sort of relegated to Mozart and Vivaldi. We feel that the American music materials are just so plentiful at this point and so rich with diversity and culture, from African American music to Hispanic music. There’s just so much there that we want the children involved with this approach.

Upcoming dates for Mark O’Connor’s Appalachian Christmas Tour:

Dec. 4 – Wilmington, Del., Grand Opera House        
Dec. 5 – Boston, Mass., Berklee Performance Center
Dec. 6 – New London, Conn., Garde Arts Center     
Dec. 7 – Fairfield, Conn., Quick Center For The Arts          
Dec. 9 – Evans, Ga., Jabez Sanford Hardin Performing Arts Center
Dec. 10 – Palm Beach, Fla., Walter S. Gubelmann Auditorium
Dec. 13 – Mobile, Ala., Saenger Theatre
Dec. 14 – Mobile, Ala., Saenger Theatre
Dec. 15 – Oxford, Ala., Oxford Performing Arts Center     
Dec. 16 – Maryville, Tenn., Clayton Center For The Arts    
Dec. 17 – Nashville, Tenn., 3rd & Lindsley                
Dec. 19 – Jasper, Ind., Jasper Performing Arts Center          
Dec. 21 – Seattle, Wash., Meany Hall For The Performing Arts
Dec. 22 – Portland, Ore., Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall      

For more information please visit Mark O’Connor’s website by clicking here. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.