Electric violin pioneer Mark Wood brings his "Electrify Your Strings" education tour to town next week. (Kevin Pacetti photo)

A revolution is transforming string and orchestral music and if Mark Wood has his way, it will change the way strings are taught in schools as well. The electric violin pioneer brings his “Electrify Your Strings” education tour to the Lake Norman area next week. That includes a concert Tuesday, Oct. 25, at W.A. Hough High School in Cornelius, where he’ll lead an orchestra of local middle and high school students in music they don’t usually get to play.

Mr. Wood was an original member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, one of the first rock orchestras to win fame and fortune. The group sold millions of records and helped bring a new dimension to the rock and music world. For the past 10 years, he’s been traveling the country, working with young string players.

“We are changing the way we think specifically about strings,” Mr. Wood said in an interview the other day. “Additionally, we are empowering kids to connect with themselves, and defining music education.”

LISTEN ON TUESDAY

On Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Wood will be working with an “all-star” orchestra of students from area schools, as part of his 2011 Electrify Your Strings “Fire & Ice and Ignite the Passion Tour.” The visit wraps up Tuesday night with a concert at Hough High.

Mark Wood, with his Viper violin. (Bob Gruen photo)

The orchestra will play Mr. Wood’s original music as well as his arrangements of music by Led Zeppelin, Cream, The Beatles, and other popular groups. The All‐Star Orchestra includes students from W.A. Hough High, Bailey Middle, Cannon, Mallard Creek High, Independence High, Harding University High, and the Cornelius Youth Orchestra.

Local string players and educators are excited about Mr. Wood’s visit, which they say is a rare opportunity to meet a musical pioneer.

Frank Albert, the owner of Davidson Violins on South Main Street in Davidson, sells Mr. Wood’s violins and is a violinist himself. He has been hoping to bring Mr. Wood here for some time.

“I call him a juggernaut. He’s just paving a path that nobody has taken the time to do,” Mr. Albert said. You can get a rock musician to play at your school, but to get one to come and … actually sit down with the kids is unusual.”

Bill Myers, who directs the Bailey Middle and Hough orchestras, said, “This is an awesome and fun opportunity unlike anything our region has ever seen, and to be able to be able to offer it free to participants is another way we instill the love of performing in our students.”

CLASSICAL TRAINING, BUT A DIFFERENT PATH

Mr. Wood knows a little something about connecting with music at a young age. His mother was a concert pianist and his father an artist, and he grew up with music. As a kid, he tinkered in the family wood shop to electrify his own violin, thinking to himself that he wanted his violin to be as cool as the guitars he saw on stage with Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen and Eric Clapton. Later, he went to New York’s Juilliard School for a traditional classical music education.

“So I learned the beauty of and the art of classical string quartets, Mozart-Beethoven-Brahms quartets,” Mr. Wood said.  “But of course after every concert, I’d run home, put my headphones on, and listen to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and all these other great, great American style artists. … And I was like, man, this is much more exciting to me as a musician.”

In the 1970s, he invented the first solid-body electric violin, and his company Wood Violins now is one of the world’s top makers of electric violins, violas and cellos. Its best-known offering is The Viper, a fretted electric violin you’ve probably seen on stage with some of your favorite bands.

Most strings education today still draws mainly from the European classical tradition, Mr. Wood said. He’d like to see string teaching better reflect the wide range of musical styles that have emerged in the U.S. over the past century, from blues to jazz to country to R&B and Hip Hop. And a key missing element, he thinks, is improvisation.

In schools, he said, “You’ll hear a lot of Beethoven and Mozart and Bach. … There’s no improvising taught. Nor is there a lot of emphasis on the ear. It’s mostly visual and note memorization. You go to Juilliard School of Music and you go to any conservatory, the type of player that comes out of conservatories is less of a musician and more of a player.”

He aims to change that through his educational tours and his electric-violin company. “What I want to try to do is incorporate the American style into music education, and at the same time reinvigorate the orchestra concept by bringing in technology that I’ve developed, which is the electric hardware made for the string players.”

Nothing less than the future of the orchestra is at stake, he said. “In the next 20 years, as we watch orchestras disappear into oblivion, we’re re-inventing the orchestra by bringing America into the orchestra. … It has nothing to do with what style of music people like or don’t like. What we need to do is bring the orchestra, string playing and string music education into the 21st century.”

WANT TO GO?

The Tuesday, Oct. 25, concert is open to the public. It begins at 7 p.m. at W.A. Hough High School, 12420 Bailey Road, Cornelius. All proceeds will help fund the schools’ music programs. Tickets are $15 each, and sponsorships also are available. For more information, email baileyorchestrapatrons@gmail.com.

Tickets also are available from Davidson Violins, 416­‐C S. Main St., Davidson, 866-291-0321, or info@davidsonviolins.com

RELATED LINKS

See Mark Wood’s full biography and other information, MarkWoodMusic.com