Mark O'Connor

Mark O'Connor plays the Holiday Theatre on Friday, December 4, bringing his American music to Denver. He's a Grammy-winning composer and bluegrass virtuoso from Charlotte, North Carolina, and he's as comfortable on the fiddle as he is on the guitar, mandolin, and mandocello. While he's best known for his violin playing and the violin method books he's written, he was a mandolin virtuoso from a young age, so he's not just a one-instrument player.

He'll be performing with his wife, fiddler and vocalist Maggie O'Connor, as a husband-and-wife duo. Together they play acoustic fiddle and guitar music that spans genres, and they've released albums like Life After Life, a project of new vocal songs and violin duos. Critics have described O'Connor as a musician whose instrumental skills and compositions bridge styles and centuries, and the duo has appeared at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall with the Vega Quartet.

Between the bluegrass roots and the more composed side of things, the night should touch on a few different moods. If you're familiar with his work, you know the violin is usually front and center, but with Maggie on vocals and fiddle, the duo adds a singing voice to the mix. It's a good way to hear how his writing works when it's shared between two people rather than just one.

Mark O'Connor at the Holiday Theatre, Friday, December 4. Tickets are available at markoconnor.com/tour.