For decades, physicists have hoped to develop a Grand Unification Theory, understanding how important physical forces might be fused into a single field. Perhaps they should consult Mark O’Connor. The esteemed fiddler and composer already has a Grand Unification Theory he applies to what American music can and should be: an artistic expression that draws much of its force from North American fiddling traditions.

As a teenager, O’Connor won so many fiddle championships that he finally had to step aside to give other young fiddlers a chance. As a young adult, O’Connor worked as a professional musician in the folk and popular worlds, perfecting his fiddle and guitar/mandolin technique and drawing inspiration from the likes of Stéphane Grappelli, Django Reinhardt, and his early mentor, Texas swing legend Benny Thomasson.

In the 1990s, O’Connor began infiltrating the classical world. Without really changing his style, he incorporated elements of various fiddling traditions into short, fully composed pieces—his breakout project was 1995’s Appalachia Waltz album, with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and bassist Edgar Meyer. Before long, O’Connor was writing full-length concert works in his idiomatic American style, steadily building a catalog of concertos, symphonies, and string quartets.

All the while, O’Connor helped young string players and their teachers explore classical, jazz, folk, and world-music styles through his Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camps, and more recently a series of residencies and, as of this summer, string conferences on the East and West coasts.

Now O’Connor has begun issuing what eventually will be a 10-volume series of instructional books, the O’Connor Violin Method, written with educator Bob Phillips and published by Alfred Publishing’s Highland/Etling Division. The Suzuki-inspired series will, from the very beginning, expose students to a variety of North American fiddle and violin styles, including such traditional tunes as “Soldier’s Joy,” “Arkansas Traveler,” and “Fiddler’s Dream,” plus a number of O’Connor originals.

As disparate as all this activity may seem, O’Connor sees himself following a single, specific path. “It’s an American music journey,” he says. “What I’m doing for the first time is possibly covering most all of the bases. I think for there to be an established concept of what American music is, I have to provide examples not only in composition, developing the literature and the traditions, but also recording, teaching, doing the camps, and now trying this beginning pedagogy, which is so instrumental in getting things started for young musicians.

“The method is something I’ve been thinking about for 15 years, but I’ve been waiting, trying to distill what has come to me so intuitively as an artist over these years. As I mix in different circles—folk, jazz, classical circles—I’m able to sharpen the message I’ve been wanting to get across all these years.”

That message, he says, is this: uniquely in the world, American music draws from a 400-year trove of fiddle pieces and folk song, an anti-establishment tradition that evolves from one generation to the next instead of remaining static.

“If you heard an Irish fiddler in 1600, most likely he would sound a lot like an Irish fiddler in 1920,” O’Connor says. “That’s not the American experience. In the process of settling America, with the mixture of the races and the struggles between the races, there was this pervasive energy of finding freedom, the plight of the individual, and the progress and the setbacks were recorded in our music. You talk to a Russian and there’s nothing in his childhood or folk music that suggested that tomorrow is going to be a better day. Whereas in America, despite the horrible things that were taking place—including slavery and the genocide of Native Americans—the individual plight is the storyline of American music, and the music needed to develop as we became more free. We still don’t have it right, but in America the individual feels like he can make a difference, and our folk music reflects this tradition of finding freedom and feeling optimism and hope for tomorrow. When you look at the languages of blues and jazz, and their freedom of expression, some of this stuff would have been outlawed in other parts of the world. Some of our music today would probably have been against the law in our own country 200 years ago.

“So even though I appreciate tradition, I’m not a traditionalist, I’m a progressive. I use traditional music to inform my creativity, and without it my creativity would not be what it is. I try to bring that history and depth in to what I’m doing.

“Crossover music or orchestral jazz, that’s so empty—there’s nothing behind it, it’s a veneer, a misguided misunderstanding of what American music is. What I hope to do with my examples from Appalachia Waltz to the Americana Symphony is to explore the beauty and depth of our traditions and how they’ve developed in American music, and how this can inform a new American classical music and create a movement from it. We have great masterpieces by Copland and Gershwin and Ellington and Bernstein, but compared to 300 years of what’s happened in Europe, that’s just a smattering.”

O’Connor is determined to break down all the barriers and divisions—not just between classical and traditional music, but among the categories of traditional music itself. “People don’t understand there is a relationship between blues music and American fiddling, and without 200 years of African slave fiddlers we wouldn’t have the hoedown,” he says. “Because of the struggle of the races to come together through music, and because the individual always thought he or she could be free here, at least once slavery ended, we continue to play our music with whoever we want to.

“Those are the bridges I’m trying to build into the classical community, tearing down the divisions and tapping into that history of creativity, imagination, and playing style to amass an American classical music that can be taught to people in schools. That’s one of the reasons I have my string camps. We no longer have back-porch mentoring by grandparents playing the fiddle. This is the first generation of fiddlers who didn’t learn from their grandparents. So we need to figure out how to get this to work inside the classroom.”

O’Connor says his method books will rely on adult tunes, not insipid kiddie stuff. “I want all the pieces to have a timeless quality,” he says, so that musicians can continue to work with them even as adults. The method will also demonstrate that there’s more than one way to play a piece, offering students different options within a single tune, and gradually making them comfortable with the idea of improvisation.

“With this method,” O’Connor says, “I feel that after the six or seven years of getting through it, the music students will be able to launch off into any area they’d like to in string playing, and be ready to specialize in classical or jazz or folk music or any combination of those. That would be my idea of helping create 21st-century modern string players, who are ready for all sorts of performing opportunities and can succeed as professional musicians or as teachers, or as amateur musicians keeping music in their lives.”

O’Connor believes that the various styles of American music are perfect for music education, because it’s strongly rhythmic, and kids are always attracted to rhythm. It’s not simple, though, especially not the sort of virtuosic music O’Connor writes for himself, and several accomplished classical players he’s worked with were initially intimidated by what he put before them.

Consider violinist and string educator Ida Kavafian, who, with O’Connor, violist Paul Neubauer, and cellist Matt Haimovitz, has performed and recorded O’Connor’s String Quartet No. 2 (subtitled “Bluegrass”) and No. 3 (“Old-Time”).

“Having worked with Mark in the past, I knew I was in violinistic trouble when he asked me to join him on this string-quartet project,” Kavafian says. “In his own true style, he insisted that I play first violin, which frightened me even more. I feared that I would be trying to converse in a foreign language without knowing one word! However, between Mark’s amazing knack for notation and the privilege of listening to him (and attempting to imitate him) while working together, things came together.

“This project was a stretch for me, but an incredible pleasure—scary, but fun.”

Joel Smirnoff, formerly of the Juilliard Quartet and now the president of the Cleveland Institute of Music, served as conductor on the new recording of O’Connor’s Violin Concerto No. 6 (“Old Brass”) and is equally impressed by his skills. “Like all great musical talents, Mark is a musical sponge,” Smirnoff says. “He has absorbed most of what he has heard in his life, since he has the ears to do it—and this is what makes him a wonderful and important composer.”

Smirnoff will welcome O’Connor to the Cleveland Institute of Music in the coming school year, “so that our students can experience his natural virtuosity and creativity first-hand. Mark is a true virtuoso and totally dedicated to sharing all that he has to offer, both with his listeners and with young talent around the world.”

Kavafian also has helped O’Connor establish a brief residency at Curtis. “Mark runs wonderful workshops,” Kavafian says. “I coordinated the residency he had at Curtis, and it was a great experience for all the students who participated. Though Mark was working with the highest level of talent at Curtis, I believe that he has a great deal to offer to students at many different levels, and there is always enjoyment in the process.

“One of the highlights was watching Curtis students learning the ‘chop.’ Some of these young people could rip through a Paganini caprice, but chopping? That was another story!”

O’Connor’s residencies at major conservatories and universities generally last only two or three days—just long enough, he jokes, to have an impact on the students but not so long that conservative faculty members start complaining about wasting money on a fiddler.

Actually, he has had great success with students and faculty alike.

“I feel that the residencies are helping me achieve a new dialogue about the importance of American music now within the conservatory halls,” he says. “The last couple of years have been a huge turn in my musical profile. I’ve come up with potentially some of my best pieces, my string quartets and this Americana Symphony that’s been getting a lot of attention, and this triple concerto for the Ahn Trio that we just premiered. I’m also developing my Web publishing store and my own label, so I can have complete freedom to record and release my music as I see fit. And now there’s all this work with the conservatories, and getting to younger kids with the method.

“It’s an exciting time, and I hope that I can provide some help to people coming up behind me who are looking to me for guidance, for setting the path.

“I feel that’s my mission. I see this as a complete movement, a musical movement of composing, recording, leading ensembles, creating the string players of the 21st century—and beginning right from the very start with the method.

“I think people are beginning to get the profound importance of American string playing. I used to be afraid that, the way society is changing, without my voice that tradition could go dormant for another generation. I feel I’m continuing the legacy of my mentors, who inspired me to do the best I could with my life in music.”

Got a Question for Mark O’Connor?

Ask violinist and educator Mark O’Connor about his new American Violin Method. Send your question to editor Greg Cahill (subject: Mark O’Connor Q&A). In early October, we’ll publish online his answers to a half dozen questions selected from the entries. Look for the exclusive Mark O’Connor Q&A at AllThingsStrings.com.