Mark O’Connor returns to El Paso with his partner in life and music Maggie O’Connor. Mark won the International Fiddle Championship in the Sun City when he was 19 years old. They talked with musicologist Lindsey Macchiarella prior to their performance for El PasoPro Musica.
Mark and Maggie have been existing in an uninterrupted musical collaboration since the day they met eight years ago in 2014. As they were perfecting the finer points of Mark’s American Classical violin duos, it got so good that they decided to get married. The next stage of their musical journey turned into a larger family collaboration for which they each took home a Grammy for playing bluegrass in the O’Connor Band. Now, they have turned yet another musical corner. The couple workshopped new songs during seventy weekly online concerts from home; Mondays with Mark and Maggie.
The violin duo recorded at the Fisher Center at Belmont University in Nashville, a new symphony hall that Maggie and Mark played their first public performance in—and the first in-person performance after the worst of the pandemic. They named the album after one of their songs co-written with the great Joe Henry; Life After Life.
Additional information:
- To learn more about their latest album visit their website: https://www.markandmaggieoconnor.com/
- For event information visit the El Paso ProMusica website:https://www.elpasopromusica.org/
- To learn more about Dr. Lindsey Macchiarella visit her website: https://lindseymacchiarella.com/
This interview originally aired on August 15, 2024
