Mark O'Connor - O'Connor Method

10/13/2026

Pre-concert talk for “Visions of Humanity and Unity”. Mark O’Connor speaks of the noble and devotional qualities from humans that AI music could never be.L-R: Zuill Bailey, Mark O’Connor, Zhou Tian, Enrico Chapela and Eckart Preu. Long Beach Symphony - 10/10/26

10/13/2026

After 20 years with many of my most personal items in this storage facility, today we are out of San Diego for good. I let go of the old 24-track reels finally. I carried all 2,000 lbs of that 2” tape with my own two hands ceremoniously to a San Diego landfill. It was a burial today in many ways. I did not take a photo of that. Some things will be too sacred. However the exact image will live with me forever. The rest of my stuff is heading over to Charlotte. So long SD.

10/12/2026

It was a rock-star-like response for the composers from this subscription-classical series audience on the co-premier of the new Cello concerto,"Visions of Humanity and Unity". Except the nearly 2,000 in attendance hardly knew who we were before they had just heard our music!

Performed by the supremely talented and charismatic cello soloist, Zuill Bailey and conductor Eckart Preu, the fabulous players of the Long Beach Symphony in southern California delivered! I take a bow for my contribution of the 5th movement, "Fiddler Going Home", Zhou Tian for the 3rd movement "Elegy" and Enrico Chapela for the 4th, "Alebrije". The two remaining composers who attended another co-premier but were not present tonight are Chanda Dancy and Avner Dorman for the 1st and 2nd movements to round out our fearless five. A hearty congratulations to my fellow composers on this contribution for the cello and symphony orchestra in American Classical music? May it continue to play!

10/11/2026

Last night’s performance of my “Fiddler Going Home” at the fantastic Long Beach Symphony led by Eckart Preu, featured the world renowned cello soloist, Zuill Bailey. In a couple sections of the piece the concertmaster of the orchestra joins the cello as a duet while the orchestra accompanies, and that role was played by none other than Los Angeles violin studio legend of a thousand movie scores, and a part of John Williams favorite lineup, Roger Wilkie! It symbolized me playing a duet with Claude “Fiddler” Williams when I said goodbye as he ascended to the heavens at age 95. It was a great moment. Thank you all for including my piece as part of the “Visions of Humanity and Unity” alongside other esteemed composers in tribute to America 250.
.roger

10/11/2026

10/10/2026

The Long Beach Symphony with conductor Eckart Preu and cello soloist Zuill Bailey rehearsing my "Fiddler Going Home" composition for tonight's concert at the Terrace Theater, Long Beach Performing Arts, California. It is one piece that is a part of the America 250 project called 'Visions of Humanity and Unity' where 4 other major American classical composers have contributed pieces to make an entire long-form piece. It sounds amazing to hear this new creation back in the hall by these fabulous musicians on stage. Concert is tonight at 7:30, and I will give a pre-concert talk with two of the wonderful composers, Enrico Barba and Zhou Tian at 6:30 in the hall. Long Beach, Cal. We'll see you there to celebrate American musical culture with the symphony orchestra!

10/10/2026

Speaking at the Long Beach Symphony picnic yesterday (literally at the beach) to symphony directors and donors in advance of tonight's concert featuring some of my music performed by the great cellist Zuill Bailey and the orchestra! I addressed the board, front office and patrons speaking about my composition "Fiddler Going Home" that they will see and hear as part of the large piece for America 250, "Visions of Humanity and Unity." Long Beach is on the quite long list of consortium members who commissioned the project.

Pictured is their fantastic Music Director and Conductor of 10 years at this orchestra, Eckart Preu, the wonderful Long Beach Symphony president Kelly Ruggirello, and fellow composer on the "Visions" project—the gifted Chinese American composer Zhou Tian. Three other visionary composers on the project could not make it to this co-premiere, Mexican American Enrico Chapela Barba, Israeli American Avner Dorman, and African American Chanda Chanda Dancy, but they were able to make it to earlier premiers that I could not. It was an honor to meet so many supporters of the symphony here, and to have this orchestra perform my music alongside of great contemporary classical composers.

Yes, it doesn't happen every day, but I thought it was fantastic for composers to be invited to the orchestra board and patron get-together. And to see their conductor speak so eloquently about music, and answer musical questions from the very people that make the orchestra possible. I did notice at the top of the rehearsal later in the day, that the orchestra president Kelly brought about a dozen people in the symphony front office and had them lined up across the front of the stage to be introduced one by one to applause from the entire orchestra of musicians. I think they probably do this often, and since there are always new players and subs in every orchestra performance, it brings the key people that make up a successfully symphony concert together, putting names and faces to the music to take place on stage.

Their new hotel partner the Fairmont Breakers Hotel (an historic building here) adjacent to the concert hall is incredible. We were hanging out at the roof top open air bar with Zuill and Eckart last night after rehearsal. The Terrace Theater and Long Beach Performing Arts Center is a fabulous venue to have music performed in.

I met a lot of warm and gracious people at the donor picnic, and every single one of them were excited to hear the new music. Now, that is very cool my friends. There were times in the recent past where the donors to orchestras gritted their teeth through the new piece so they could just get to the Beethoven and Brahms as soon as possible! Not so these days. People, once given an opportunity to really contribute to our collective culture, are willing to come together on special things in the music-making for the American orchestra scene. Bringing composers, the conductor, orchestra president, board members and donors together to talk about music for 90 minutes was very good in our symphony orchestra culture. Kudos, and we'll see you tonight at the concert. Terrace Theater, Long Beach, California!

Also picture at the rooftop bar: Eckart Preu, Zuill Bailey, Issy Farris (VP Ops), Maggie and Mark - Breakers Fairbanks Hotel Rooftop

10/09/2026

The Tale of Two Music Cities

Does the new Oracle partnership with the Nashville Symphony, bringing what some NSO employees are saying is a right wing idealogue-Trump-aligned AI company to the symphony, heal any divides with the country music industry? An industry that seems to have not helped to fund the NSO historically. Perhaps. Or does it expose more divisions? Without any NSO musicians weighing in specifically on the new partnership, nor country music artists and companies offering much of any help to the NSO in the past, two lower-lever folks on each side of the equation have been quite vocal online about it all. Indeed the tale of two music cities.

According to Development Events Assistant at the Nashville Symphony, Laura Culbertson’s she wrote this on WPLN Craig Havighurst’s post that expressed some caution in partnering with Oracle.

Laura Culbertson: “This is my take on what I’ve watched happening at the Symphony firsthand. Oracle just gave 10 million dollars to our Nashville Symphony. If you’re curious how Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, made that money, and became both the richest man in the world and the most powerful person in the United States, while doing so, a good place to start is at the Belcourt Theater next week.

As Oracle CEO, Safra Catz, explained to the Israeli-American Council crowd last year, “We have profoundly scary technology at Oracle” that we “made sure was available to advance the agenda of the Israeli military in Gaza.

Watch Israeli soldiers describe, first hand, how they personally used Oracle tech in Gaza these last 3 years, at the Belcourt Theater. Showings are Sunday-Wednesday, Oct. 11-14.”
Incidentally, newspapers around the country are reporting today that the Ellisons’ Paramount merger just went through, giving Larry Ellison, Oracle’s founder, and his son, controlling interest in the largest US media monopoly I’m aware of in modern history. This includes TikTok, CNN, CBS, Paramount Plus, HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Discovery, and dozens of other US media and intellectual properties (eg Star Trek, Marvel). Also this week, the new Israeli documentary, based on over 100 interviews of Israeli soldiers, describing how they’ve personally used Oracle technology to target and kill thousands of civilians in Gaza, with an interface that feels like playing a video game, begins a 4-day run of shows at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater, starting Sunday.”
-posted by Laura Lorraine Culbertson who works with Nashville Symphony.

In the absence of any major country music stars opinions on the new partnership for their symphony orchestra, there is Ryan Weaver, a lower-level country artists but with well over 200k Meta followers, unloads on the other side of the equation:

Ryan Weaver: “Bridgestone Arena: Bridgestone; Regions Bank

Ryman Auditorium: PNC Bank; Ford

Grand Ole Opry House: Chase; Lyft

Ascend Amphitheater: Ascend Federal Credit Union; Farm Bureau Insurance; AXS; Carl Black Chevy; Vanderbilt Health

TPAC: HCA Healthcare/TriStar Health; Nissan; Infiniti; Farm Bureau Health Plans; PNC Bank; Amazon; Wellpoint; First Horizon Bank; Delta Dental of Tennessee; Vanderbilt; Regions Bank; Dollar General; Bank of America; BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee; Enterprise Holdings; Pinnacle Financial Partners.

We all know why you all suddenly give a s**t about Oracle coming in to keep some of the nation's greatest musicians employed at one of the nation's most spectacular venues. It has nothing to do with what the company does or that it is owned by billionaires. IF that were true, you would have cared long ago about partnerships and sponsorships of EVERY OTHER VENUE in Nashville.

If that were true, you wouldn't have attended events where billionaire owned companies sponsored the event. If that were true, you wouldn't use GPS on your cell phone. You wouldn't use CHATGpt. You wouldn't be paying for cloud subscriptions or apps that require data centers to run.

What is true? The political party you disagree with supports the advancement of AI to keep up with our adversaries and the rest of the world. The political party you support is against it... oh, and so is China.

Stop the politically skewed bulls**t fake outrage. Just like every other company that has moved to Tennessee, you would hope they contributed to the arts and culture. This one does, and you are all still bitching. It's pitiful, really.”
- Ryan Weaver, country music artist.

So, this is about as wide of a separation I’ve ever witnessed in the music scene, anywhere. The entire point of Kenneth Schermerhorn and Martha Ingram allying with me—a CMA winner, and a new composer of orchestral music in the ‘90s, was to help bridge that divide, and bring more attention to the orchestra from my side. I was commissioned by them for many symphonic works for the orchestra, including “Fanfare For the Volunteer”, and performed as guest soloist with them 15 times, including playing one of my fiddle concertos with the Nashville Symphony at their Carnegie Hall debut.

But let me just say a couple of things from my more libera-artist perspective, China is not necessarily an adversary to Big Tech and Trump it appears, maybe a friendly competitor. Did you miss the big red carpet rollout for Xi, the other day in Washington D.C.? If you actually listen to what they are saying (Musk, Altman etc) they want us to become like China with a government dividend for income, a UHI—Universal High Income while they replace our jobs with AI and robots. The "Age of Abundance."

Also, some country musicians seem to equate advanced technology with AI, and that is incorrect. They are two different things. So all of us who use and enjoy GPS, it has literally nothing to do with AI, nor does us having an iCloud, or the traditional data center handling our bank transactions. That is not AI. In music circles using autotune or the drum machine is not AI. Autotune, Melodyne, drum machines or sampling—all of that is human controlled technology and gadgets, not AI. So the constant “fake” justification that since we like this or use that, well you should like Oracle and AI then… is bogus. AI is deliberately trying to replace us on the streaming platforms. There is a reason that Ryan Weaver has 200k Meta followers, but only has 2k Spotify listeners. We humans are being shoved to the curb! We’re being used!

Secondly, according to this, the Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry House is backed by American banks and by American car companies like Ford. Who among us who doesn’t’ have a bank account or an automobile? These institutions are as American as apple pie. But a lot of us are gravely concerned about where AI is taking us, and that is Oracle, and Culbertson's writing on this is chilling. Many are concerned about AI Data Centers popping up in our neighborhoods. Wasn’t country star Brad Paisley really vocal online about running the proposed AI Data Center out of Nashville? In the meantime Oracle is looking at that “cooling” water of the Cumberland River. Most any musician does not have a problem being sponsored by our banking institutions and our car manufacturers. My memoir has a lot to do with my first two rides as a teen, the Ford Econoline Van, and the Ford 150 Pickup. It is part of my American musical story.

Anway, there are some serious things put forward here. We just learned from Music Director Leonard Slatkin that in the week leading up to the Oracle partnership saw some of the NSO musicians running for the hills. That included taking other jobs in other cities that might now conflict with the resurrected NSO schedule, and even a few early retirements wanting to get those pension dollars now. But how will the new partnership with Oracle affect still other musicians as their new and nearly sole sponsor? In an interview Slatkin said nearby orchestras in Indianapolis and Louisville have strong organizations and on solid financial footing, but those cities he argues are half the size of Nashville. And they don't have a mega music industry bringing in tons of money.

10/09/2026

I know a lot of you have been coming to this page for updates, curiosity and just utter hope for the Nashville Symphony to get ahead here and succeed in every way possible. Posted below is an extraordinary audio interview with their legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin going into great depth on the plight of the NSO and himself this week. He wants to do everything possible to help this orchestra succeed. You know he was the music director for the National Symphony, and he is watching his former home, the Kennedy Center come down. He doesn't want it to happen again.

I am in the business, so I listened to every word Leonard said over the 35 minute interview with great interest. I worked with him at the Kennedy Center performing one of my compositions with the National Symphony. Some of you will not have the time listen to the whole interview, so I will give you a few takeaways from it. But I'd listen to it. He is great to listen to speak. Firstly, a lot of what Leonard said here, has been intimated right here on my posts. But some things still kinda blew me away, although they were exactly what I had said here, too. But to hear it right from the top man, and so well articulated was surprising to me still.

One is the ownership of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. It is literally owned by the Nashville Symphony, save for a 20M loan that Martha Ingram structured through a real estate company she began just for the purpose of rescuing the orchestra and hall after the Nashville flood. Otherwise, they own the rest of the hall. Of course the vast majority of that ownership came via Martha and her gift to the symphony.

Remember a couple posts ago, I said that even if the NSO owns the hall, they might not be able to afford it. Like giving the fee car to Oprah Winfrey's audience, or in one case a billionaire wanting to buy Scottish Fiddle great (and my good friend) Aly Bain a Stradivarius. In both cases, they could not afford the gift. And ultimately had to say no. You would need a lot of income coming in to own assets like a building, let alone a world class concert hall. So Slatkin said on this interview... He said that owning the hall is like an albatross around NSO's neck. And even though it is one of the great symphony halls in the country, they can't afford it. They would be better off playing in someone else's building, and paying as some orchestras do, $1 for the evening's rental as a non-profit orchestra. One Dollar.

So, it brings us to why did Martha gave the hall away to the NSO? And not just keep it as an Ingram piece of real estate. I believe, it was the dedication to her great friend, the conductor of the NSO, Kenneth Schermerhorn. She felt that if the symphony themselves owned it, it would always be named for Kenneth, as he brought them the great hall (through Martha). But if the Ingram estate owned it, then after she was gone, she felt that the estate could sell it off, and the name would change to that person or corporation who would buy it. It really was one person—Martha, who wanted to create a memorial legacy for her friend (and my friend) Kenneth Schermerhorn. What changed is that the symphony could not make enough money in donations and raising an endowment to afford to keep the lights on, even with increased credibility and Grammy wins in the hall - 14 of them.

Another thing we touched on here is rentals, and movie music, other non classical programming. He confirmed that they also lose money doing movie soundtrack concerts on ticket sales even if it is sold out, perhaps not quite as much as they lose on classical, but by no means is that a night where they make the money back. They do it for audiences, to expand their reach into the community. And Leonard also likes movie music in general. But he did confirm where the NSO/Center could make money with their asset is rentals. Renting it out to other artists for shows (like what Martha wished would happen for country artists to play there, or rent it out to weddings, ceremonies, graduations and the like. That is the only time the hall makes revenue he said. Otherwise it is a money loser.

He didn't outright say this, but he hinted at it... that I don't think he would mind at all, if someone bought the hall. And they could rent the days they need it on the cheap. And that means... would their new relationship with Oracle perhaps... could go in this direction. Sell them the hall? But you know very well, that Martha would be so upset by this. To have Kenneth's name replaced on the hall. She did everything she knew how to do as an astute business billionaire, to have Kenneth's Symphony Center in Nashville for all musicians to revere going foreward. That might be at risk. Ask yourself if Oracle bought it (or another corporation), would they take his name off and rename it after themselves?

But the potential good news for the NSO, if they did sell the building, they would make some big money, pay off that 20M loan, establish the large endowment they need, and the orchestral music would play on potentially for a long time. What a story, what a saga. It is wild to have been so close to this story unfolding. And it's been great to share what I know about this. Of course as an American classical music composer and performer, this is my backyard, this is the stuff I think about all the time, these are my employers—these places are where I work and where my music exists.

Right now we are in L.A. and will attend the Long Beach Symphony performing my composition "Fiddler Going Home" Saturday night as a part of the "Visions of Humanity and Unity" project with cellist Zuill Bailey as soloist for America 250. First time for me to hear it, although it has been played by a few orchestras over the last couple of months. I only hope it comes to Nashville Symphony one day, too.

https://open.spotify.com/show/3V1Avl7p7ovFoFOzyC7W6R?go=1&sp_cid=42ec3cf64fd8313e990f2ca77e1ba9db&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1&dlsi=96b54108b99b467a

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