One of America's most prolific and celebrated violinists is coming tomorrow to the Eisenhower Auditorium's Center for the Performing Arts with a program designed to heal the American spirit.

Mark O'Connor feels his score is well suited for the times in light of the tragic events of Sept. 11, and his music is an uplifting celebration of our musical history blended with a unique brand of composing, he said.

The tour, accompanied by the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, features O'Connor's The American Seasons, his most recent recording.

O'Connor was commissioned to write seasons inspired by Vivaldi's famous quartet of concertos by Tory Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, N.Y. A season is a four-movement scheme based on the seasons of years. O'Connor makes an artistic departure where he focuses on the seasons of a human life, with references from the seven ages of man speech in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Scored for 20 strings and guitars, The American Seasons represent spring, summer, fall, and winter as infancy, adolescence, maturity, and old age, respectively.

After the dawning of the spring movement, O'Connor switches to what he described as a "happy go-lucky blues of an American kid going to school." As with life, the summer will inevitably turn into fall. He said the second part of the summer movement is a coming of age that teens experience entering adulthood, with a background of swing, ragtime, big band and rock — a tribute to his varied musical influences, O'Connor said.

If the maturity of fall is autobiographical of O'Connor now, he describes winter as the real projection from him. "Winter is a departure of Shakespeare's description of old-man becoming insane," he said. "I am depicting the old man as maybe the only person left sane."

In the winter movement, the old man's life theme is being stolen by those around him. The old man let's them take it as he searches for his ancestral theme. Reels and jigs replace the dissonance with intense harmonies — a theme in O'Connor's own life as his musical journey has also taken him back to his Celtic roots.

Guitar was O'Connor's first instrument. As an 11-year-old child growing up in the Seattle area, he first discovered the violin when it was played on television. His father was an alcoholic, his mother a semi-invalid who delighted in music, he said.

"My mother's favorite was classical, but she had a passion for jazz in her college years. She loved all that stuff ... (even) the flamenco guitar."

Taught to play the violin by ear, O'Connor's most significant teacher was auto mechanic and Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson. Other major musical influences include the French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. O'Connor was known to be a master in his own right.

At 17 he won the country's most prestigious fiddling contest in Weiser, Idaho; a few months later he joined the jazz mandolinist David Grisman's quintet as a guitarist. His playing carried him from the San Francisco jazz scene to Atlanta's rock fusion circuit, where he played electric violin before he went to Nashville at 23 to try his hand at country. Before he was 30 he was a celebrated musician in a city overrun by music hopefuls. He was the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year from 1990 through 1995.

O'Connor was ready for a change. Finished with the endless demands of country music recording, he started to delve into classical composition. In 1993 he presented his first violin concerto, Fiddle Concerto with the Santa Fe Symphony — a title filled with meaning, affirming the compatibility of folk and classical music. Although O'Connor says the piece "raised eyebrows at first, bringing American folk into classical recording," it has become one of O'Connor's signature pieces, played over 150 times.

His second concerto, Fanfare for the Volunteer, was released the same year as Appalachia Waltz, a historical piece in its own right.

O'Connor's Appalachia Waltz was a collaboration with two of the classical world's most celebrated performers, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and double bassist Edgar Meyer. The follow up release, Appalachian Journey, received a Grammy Award in February 2001.

Prior to Appalachian Journey O'Connor did a live recording of his solo recital, released in 1998 as Midnight on the Water. The recital pays homage to Paganini, an Italian violinist of such acclaim that his phenomenal technique gave rise to rumors of diabolical assistance.

A musician of many influences, O'Connor eschews stereotype. He has won recognition as a fiddler, but while he was perfecting his bluesy Texan style, he was playing lead guitar in a Seattle band, playing at the Grand Ole Opry, and touring with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. By 18, O'Connor's playing owed as much to jazz, blues, country and rock as to Texas fiddling. Today he is his own category.

"There is a real possibility I am on the brink of establishing a violin sound for American music," O'Connor said. He thinks that his American Seasons tour is "the kind of music that would really appeal to a young crowd."

Young crowds are of special interest to O'Connor; he founded the Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp in Nashville, Tenn., and San Diego. Twice a year he assembles a faculty to teach in a number of musical styles to students from around the world, ranging in age and experience from young children to senior citizens.

The Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, directed by Scott Yoo, is a Boston-based orchestra that has a history of bringing together young musicians and emerging composers. The young ensemble is O'Connor's perfect choice for accompaniment, he said.

"They have a really different feel from an established orchestra," he said. "American Seasons really benefits from their careful attention and scrutiny."

O'Connor is confident about the tour, and looking forward to his introduction to Penn State tomorrow.

"It's going to be a great tour and a great way to present modern classical music," O'Connor said.

According to Laura Sullivan, head of public relations for the Center for the Performing Arts, "Mark O'Connor does for the fiddle what Bela Fleck (a renowned jazz musician) does for the banjo. Mark is one of the greatest musicians of our time."