Mark O'Connor

But you mentioned Boston.

It was my first introduction ever to fiddle music or even seeing anyone play the violin in a way that, you know, was non-classical, was Mark O'Connor's early, early fiddle camp that he was running at Berklee College of Music.

It was sort of a pilot program at the time, and a lot of the star players of today were there teaching me bluegrass and old time for the very first time when I was a high school student.

It was a very cool era of music camp history.

I was fundamentally disinterested in theory and, and oral skills.

Cause I was like, at this point I'd settled into the, my dream was to like be playing with like, you know, Bailiff and Tony and Mark O'Connor and, I found this world of music that really spoke to me that had some of the rigor and the cool density that I really liked and elegance, but it still was rooted in string band music.

I was like, It's still bluegrass.

But I had to take these classes and I actually really struggled with them.

Though Stuart's collection has no precedent in terms of its vantage and scale, he has acknowledged some reference points.

The fiddle giant Mark O'Connor wrote and recorded six caprices in the late 1990s, and in the early 20th century, the British composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor composed 24 negro melodies for piano.

Stuart recently arranged and recorded selections from that suite for violin and orchestra, earning his seventh Grammy nomination.

Stewart's output has long hinted at a project like 24 American Caprices.