NORWOOD -- The Norwood Village Green Concert Series has announced the O’Connor Band featuring Mark O’Connor will perform next season on July 16.

Recipient of 2 Grammy Awards, a winner of the Country Music Associations’ Best Instrumentalist Award 6 consecutive years, featured on more than 500 CD’s backing hundreds of other performers, fellow performer and collaborator Wynton Marsalis called O’Connor “a movement unto himself”.

Mark O'Connor is an violinist and composer who has had success melding various genres of music ­­ country and bluegrass, jazz, and classical ­­ into his own unique style and voice.

This has resulted in two Grammy awards; dozens of his own albums; collaborations with a diversity of other musicians, such as Yo­Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Renée Fleming, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Alison Krauss, and Marin Alsop; and a playing method program widely used by string students.

In 1986, O'Connor, Edgar Meyer, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush formed the band Strength in Numbers, which played some of O'Connor's own pieces. His first Grammy award came in 1991 for his album New Nashville Cats. His music uses elements of folk, classical, jazz, and world music ­­ what he calls the "four pillars of string playing."

His first album on Sony Classical, Appalachia Waltz (1996), was with cellist Yo­Yo Ma and bassist Edgar Meyer. The trio's next album, Appalachian Journey (2000), won O'Connor his second Grammy award. His Fiddle Concerto, composed in 1993, has been performed around the world hundreds of times.

Americana Symphony, recorded by Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony.

The O'Connor Band performs arrangements of Americana. The band is a family project that introduces Mark's family members: Maggie O'Connor ­ fiddle, Forrest O'Connor ­ mandolin and vocals and Kate Lee ­ fiddle and vocals. Rounding out the band is National Flatpick Guitar Champion Joe Smart and double bassist/old­time banjoist Geoff Saunders.

The O’Connor Band’s first recording “Coming Home” debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Chart.