The series will present three-time Grammy award recipient Mark O’Connor featuring the O’Connor Band Sunday, July 16, at 6 p.m.

Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem will perform “American Spiritual” in the American Folk Tradition Thursday, July 20, at 7 p.m.

Mark O’Connor and the O’Connor Band was awarded a Grammy on February 12, 2017 in the Bluegrass category for their most recent recording “Coming Home.” It was O’Connor’s third Grammy.

In the history of the Norwood Village Green Concert Series 17 Grammy Award recipients have been presented, however this is the first time the Grammy winner performed in the year they won the award

"The audience was on its feet . . . They were moved by Mr. O'Connor's journey without maps, cheering for the only musician today who can reach so deeply first into the refined, then the vernacular, giving his listeners a complex, sophisticated piece of early-21st-century classical music and then knocking them dead with the brown-dirt whine of a Texas fiddle," said The New York Times of the artist.

The O'Connor Band, featuring iconic fiddler Mark O'Connor, will put on an engaging, dynamic show featuring compelling arrangements, virtuosic solos, and tight vocal harmonies.

[img_assist|nid=202890|title=Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=250|height=176]Mark will introduce family members Maggie O'Connor on fiddle, Forrest O'Connor on mandolin and vocals and Kate Lee on fiddle and vocals.

Rounding out the band is National Flatpick Guitar Champion Joe Smart and double bassist/old-time banjoist Geoff Saunders.

“The master of the American fiddle. He is a movement unto himself,” says Wynton Marsalis of O’Connor.

O’Connor has recorded 45 feature albums, featuring an eclectic blend of genres, and has sold more than two million CDs as a solo recording artist.

The artist has collaborated with such notables as Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Randy Travis, The Judds, Stephane Grappelli, Yo-Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Yehudi Menhuin, Tony Rice, Frank Vignola and Sam Bush, among others.

With more than 250 performances, his first full length orchestral score "Fiddle Concerto" has become the most-performed modern violin concerto composed in the last 50 years.

O’Connor is still the only person to ever win national titles (open to all ages) on fiddle, bluegrass guitar and mandolin (Weiser, ID; Winfield, Kansas; Kerrville, TX). He has also won a record breaking six Country Music Association Musician Of The Year Awards in a row in Nashville, TN.

The show on July 20 featuring Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem will feature harmony, rhythm and indelible songs, hallmarks of the New England based folk quartet now in its 15th year.

Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem are Rani Arbo (fiddle, guitar), Andrew Kinsey (bass, banjo, ukulele), Anand Nayak (electric and acoustic guitars) and Scott Kessel (percussion).

At the helm, Arbo is “blessed with an unmistakable voice, both light and sultry, with a hint of tremolo and smoke” (Acoustic Guitar).

With Kinsey and Nayak’s vibrant baritones and Kessel’s resonant bass, the band’s signature lockstep harmonies can shake the rafters or hush the room.

Arbo’s fiddle is sweet and sinewy, while Nayak’s guitar stretches across genre lines. Kinsey’s old- time bass anchors the deep groove of Kessel’s homemade percussion kit — a truly funky collection of cardboard boxes, tin cans, caulk tubes, packing-tape tambourines, bottle-cap rattles, Mongolian jaw harps, and a vinyl suitcase.

From bluegrass barnstormers to sultry swing, old-time gospel to bluesy folk-rock, they consistently turn in lush arrangements with “stylish, unexpected choices” (Acoustic Guitar). Original songs fit seamlessly aside artful re-workings of Georgia Sea Islands music, Hank Williams, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen.

“How refreshing to hear something that sounds as if it has come from people who are genuinely original thinkers. As soon as Rani Arbo & daisy mayhem strike up, you realize this is a band that is unpredictable and impossible to pigeonhole. But, what a thoroughly mellifluous melange — sophisticated, soulful and always handled with care and a lightness of touch that is part folk/jazz/country, part blues/old time, and all good. There is a togetherness that flows right through the heart of the performance. It never gets too clever and always remains understated and classy,” writes Maverick Magazine.

The group has released five albums on Signature Sounds, with the newest being “Violets Are Blue” (April 2015), an eclectic bouquet of love songs infused with poetry and groove, that “skip over sentimentality and go straight to the bittersweet truth” (Music Matters review).

Admission to both shows is free but there is a “pass the bucket.” The series is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

The appearance of Mark O’Connor’s underwriter support is given by the Sweetgrass Foundation.

The series continues to take donations by check. They can be mailed to: Norwood Village Green Concert Series, 3 Bicknell Street, Norwood 13668. All contributions are tax deductible. Donations are encouraged and needed.

For more information about the series and the performers, consult the series website nvgcs.org, or call 315-353-2437 or 315-261-2866.