Following its debut at last summer's Cabrillo Music Festival, Americana music master Mark O'Connor's first symphonic work has now been recorded by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and is set for release in March 2009. "Americana Symphony: Variations on Appalachia Waltz" is a full symphony is six movements, each a variant of the Appalachia Waltz theme that O'Connor composed in 1993 and recorded at that time as a collaboration among O'Connor, Yo Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer.

Following the original recording, a group of 15 American orchestras commissioned the full work, which O'Connor completed last year. The recording was produced by legendary producer Steve Epstein with Grammy winner Richard King engineering. Marin Alsop conducted the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

"Any composition is not quite finished until it is recorded, and it was great to put the wrap on this musical journey for me. It was thrilling putting it on tape. It sounded like it did when it was still dancing around my head," O'Connor said. It will be released March 10, 2009 by OMAC Records.

O'Connor, who first achieved acclaim as a child prodigy fiddle master, is currently artist-in-residence at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. His fluency with both classical and traditional American music forms yields a unique musical language that finds full expression in the new work. More information on the Americana Symphony is available here, and a video interview with the composer is here.