Strings & Threads Suite is a piece comprising of thirteen tunes composed by Mark O'Connor. In 1986, the Tennessee Dance Theater commissioned the "Suite" from O'Connor to be performed at Nashville's Summer Lights Festival. The individual tunes are in various folk styles appearing in a chronological form for which O'Connor says not only represents the evolution of American folk music, but also mirrors his own family's migration from Ireland and Holland to America. It traces the family's route through the thirteen colonies initially, and then eventually out West during WWl nearly 300 hundred years later. O'Connor wrote the pieces in a manner and style in which he felt his family could have heard along the way. The "Suite" begins with Irish music, maybe similar to what O'Connor's family brought with them.

Then in a thoughtful progression, reveals music they must of encountered living in early America. "Strings & Threads" musically describes how folk music styles hundreds of years apart are interconnected - possessing a common thread, from an Irish reel to jazz.

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