The career of Mark O’Connor, who won the Grand Master Fiddler Championship at age 13, has included his years as a much-sought-after session musician in Nashville, as a composer and as an educator. His “Improvised Violin Concerto” will have its premiere this spring, and he continues to write new volumes of the O’Connor Violin Method, an American-themed alternative to the Suzuki approach. Although he is often on the road or at a country house in Pennsylvania with his partner — also a string player — and their daughter, New York City is his base. On Sundays, Mr. O’Connor, 51, concentrates on writing and composing in his “cave,” an apartment on West 57th Street. 
The CD+DVD premiere and the New York City premiere of "The Improvised Violin Concerto" is this Spring. It will paired with my Triple Concerto - "March of the Gypsy Fiddler" performed by the Ahn Trio.

NIGHT OWL I don’t sleep very long. I stay up very late, until 3 a.m. I don’t get up and eat anything. I just hit the liquids — I have some herbal tinctures I add to water that are supposed to be cleansing, and composing is cleansing, too. 

For me, the best Sunday of all, is a musical Sunday. While a huge portion of New York City is not working on Sunday and that includes my manager, agent, publicists, assistant, distributor, string camp co-director, my band musicians, music lawyer, publishing administrator, method books graphic designer etc., I get to have a peaceful morning to get some good composing in. Composing music seems to nurture a musical spirituality in me, so Sunday is a nice day to experience that part too.  I sleep on the average of 4-5 hours a night and mostly work on music the rest of the time. The morning hours are perfect for both composing and thinking about larger creative ideas and directions. Instead of eating breakfast, I simply drink water and compose. I can think more clearly about music when I am just hitting the liquids. Denying myself the pleasures of gorging on pancakes or slabs of bacon helps my focus and discipline I believe. My goal is to compose the best American symphonies and string quartets I possibly can. I have completed many compositions from where I live in Midtown, Manhattan. A place where I am really inspired to compose my best. For the tinctures I mentioned in the article, I have been using Dr. Schulze Herbal formulas taken with water in the morning for over 10 years

SOCIAL NETWORKING I have a YouTube channel, so I scan the Internet for my favorite videos, and I’ve made different playlists. I’m stealing back my own content. I call it “social fiddle justice,” and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I usually post something that’s slow or spiritual on a Sunday. 

When it occurred to me that I have a whole television station practically with just YouTubes of me already out there hosted by various folks, I finally saw the fairness when musicians could also use their own content without permission from whoever owned it. A kind of musical justice. Some of the categories I have on my channel include: "Transformational Newgrass," "American Classical Music," "Revolutionary Music Education - Violin," "Outrageous Rockin' Violin" and several more. I upload one new video per week, currently we are up to about 160 videos we share with fans on my YouTube Channel. I usually wish my fans a happy Sunday by posting one of my more peaceful or contemplative music performances on my Facebook Fanpage and Twitter.

LUNCH BREAK My first meal is lunch, and I usually go out for it at one of the sandwich shops in the neighborhood. I walk past Carnegie Hall and think about how many of my pieces have not been performed there. I’m never done striving. 

I live two blocks from Carnegie Hall on 57th. I can just barely see the hall when I walk out my front door each time. The famous saying, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Well, I decided that I had enough practice so I wanted to be within walking distance! When I take my Sunday walk to have my first meal of the day, I walk by Carnegie thinking about all of my compositions that have not been booked there yet! It gives me a jolt, a reminder that I am never done striving, dreaming and hoping for the ultimate stage.

I can't be discouraged though that every last thing I have composed has not been on the Carnegie Hall stage, because I have had many wonderful moments there. The many times Yo-Yo Ma has played my composition "Appalachia Waltz" at Carnegie, the time I performed by Double Violin Concerto there with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, performing my composition with Renee Fleming and Orpheus at Carnegie. The first time I appeared with Isaac Stern was at Carnegie. We became friends after that. He helped to save Carnegie Hall. The first time I played Carnegie Hall I was 18 years old, appearing with my mentor Stephane Grappelli.

COFFEE ALTERNATIVE My caffeine intake begins in the afternoon. I’ll get a Venti soy green tea latte at Starbucks. One of my biggest decisions is whether to go to the Starbucks across 57th Street or on 58th Street. It’s usually to do with the weather. If it’s nice weather, I’ll cross 57th Street midblock, ducking cars and living dangerously. 

My vice is the Venti Soy Green Tea Latte (unsweetened) from Starbucks. Having been born and raised in Seattle, it reminds me a little of Pike Place Market in 1976 as a teenager. I often joke with friends around the country that the hardest decision of my Sunday is deciding to go to the Starbucks across the street, or to the Starbucks directly out my 58th street door.

MORE ON ‘THE METHOD’ After the first latte, I go back to my cave and begin working more on composition or on authoring my method. The work it takes is incalculable. I want to give stature to American string music and its history, culture, creativity, the social aspects and the power of its being a vehicle for political change. That really hasn’t been researched before. 

I have been authoring the O'Connor Method for now 8 years (15 years conceptualizing and gathering materials before that). All of the books are available that are completed and those levels are up to the middle school and high school levels on the violin and orchestra series.

The many students and teachers of the "O'Connor Method" books are on my mind all the time. Because somewhere in the country, a Teacher-Training Seminar or a student recital from my Method is being held. Usually several events taking place at once. It will take me about five more years to finish authoring the advanced books of the violin and string pedagogy using American music, culture, history and creativity. It is very inspiring to know that there are tens of thousands of children already learning from my beginning violin books around the country, while I am working on the advanced books for when those students are older. The Method containing American literature and creativity is a first of its kind in the history violin pedagogy.

NEIGHBORS Once in a while when I get discouraged, I’m reminded of the fact that the great composer Bela Bartok lived right next door. I feel his presence. He was doing something very unpopular; he struggled while he was here. It gives me a sense of journey — people doing the same kind of thing I am. 

There is a palpable feeling of energy, 24 hours a day in Midtown and that really suits my temperament and my musical soul. My inspiration is aided by the fact that the great composer Bela Bartok lived right next door many decades ago, long before I lived there. Bartok's bust is on my building's wall and it is a constant reminder that I should really get it together. The amount of music I can compose in the morning hours of a Sunday is amazing. With no nagging music business emails or phone calls I have to field all week long, it is very interesting to get back to what it felt like when I was young and no one cared to call me for anything. I am left alone with just me and my music.

TO THE PARK I would go on until I start to get kind of tired and stir crazy, and that’s when I’ll go to Central Park. I usually walk and take my skateboard. I broke the world record of the skateboard high jump when I was 15. That was before all the X Games.

One of the most awesome things for me is to walk across the street and go into Central Park at the end of the day. I don't think I will ever get over how great that Park is and how New Yorkers feel when we are there, enjoying the Park with the busy city life just beyond its borders. I grew up skateboarding on the west coast and still skateboard today in my 50s. It would not be unusual to catch my moves on the southern loop. One day I was skateboard the loop while my son was jogging. I noticed that several people checked out my board, it is a vintage board from 1976 in fact. I said to Forrest as I buzzed by him on the road that people are checking out my moves on the board. He laughed and said, "no they can't believe why a man your age is skateboarding!"

DINING OUT My favorite place to eat dinner is at Whole Foods. I love their salads and their hot meals, too. They feel almost home-cooked. I go there and eat in and grab another latte. 

I often go to Mexican food as well, two place on 54th that made the move from San Diego much easier to do!

LISTENING, PLAYING I might hit a late-night set at Dizzy's or the Blue Note for some jazz, and if I’m really feeling it, I might end up playing fiddle in Greenwich Village with friends. When the weather is nice, I end up on the street, jamming. 

My recipe for music listening success is a 8:00pm classical music concert that my friends and colleagues are performing in, sometimes the opera at the Met, sometimes a orchestral concert or a chamber music concert around Midtown. For the nightcap I usually go to Dizzy's at Jazz at Lincoln Center and meet up with my my pal Wynton and band members there, or the friends down at the Blue Note for the late sets. Both of those clubs I have often performed at with my own Hot Swing. Then when I am really feeling it, I find an old-time or bluegrass fiddle jam session in the middle of the night down in the Village with friends and beers.

WHITE NOISE My habit, unbelievably, is that I listen to the news all night on CNN. I do it so my mind doesn’t race. When there’s nothing going on, I think about musical phrases and different types of rhythms. It’s kind of maddening, so to have a kind of low conversation in the background allows me to drift off peacefully. 
For me, silence has often been deafening, while I can tune out most city noises and work away.

-Mark O'Connor 1/5/13


 (Photo by James Estrin/The New York Times) 

A version of this article appeared in print on January 6, 2013, on page MB2 of the New York edition with the headline: The Fiddler in the Cave.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/nyregion/mark-oconnor-violin-composer-finds-inspiration-in-his-cave.html?smid=tw-nytimesmusic&seid=auto&_r=0