Heralded by the Boston Musical Intelligencer as “attractive and intelligible,” New York based composer Brian Mark (b. 1976) is a multi-dimensional artist, with influences spanning from the contemporary and traditional realm to jazz, musical theatre, film music, folk, new age, electronic, and the stylistic pop genres of the decadent 80’s. His voice in composition has also been described as fresh, unique, and visual in today’s concept of modern music.
Brian Mark holds a MM from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a BM from the Berklee College of Music, and a BA in Psychology from Boston University. He has received certificates from the University of Southern California (Film Scoring) and the La Schola Cantorum in association with the European-American Musical Alliance (EAMA) program at L'Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. Brian has studied with David Conte, David Garner, James Russell Smith, and has taken graduate studies in composition with Howard Frazin at the Longy School of Music. Additional festival composition studies with Chen Yi, Christopher Theofanidis, Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser, David Tcimpidis, and Michel Merlet. While at USC he had worked with film composers David Raksin and Christopher Young.
Brian has received prizes from the SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Competition Prize (Regional Winner), multiple ASCAPlus Awards, the BMI Henry Warren Film Scoring Award, the Ross McKee Foundation for the Musical Arts, the Florence Gould Michael Iovenko Memorial Fellowship Award, first prize from the 5th Bi-Annual San Francisco Conservatory Choral Competition, and the Berklee Achievement Scholarship. He has attended the California Summer Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the highSCORE Festival. He has been featured as a composer-in-residence with the Chelsea Symphony, the Bizarre Noir Theatre Company, and was recently awarded multiple artist residencies at the I-Park Artists’ Enclave, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Ucross Foundation. He has been commissioned by the Chelsea Symphony, DETOUR New Music Ensemble, Pedro Duo, Harpist Michelle Gott, Emmy-Award Director Adam Starr, and performers from the Reno Philharmonic.
His music has been performed across the US and Europe. His works have been premiered by many notable performers and ensembles, such as the Chelsea Symphony, USC Symphony Orchestra, DETOUR New Music Ensemble, Brave New Works, Esterhazy String Quartet, Juventas Ensemble, Huxley Vertical Cabaret Nouveau Ensemble, Vox Novus, Ligeti Quartet, Pedro Duo, San Francisco New Music Ensemble, San Francisco Conservatory Chorus, performers from the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra, Dither Quartet, and has had performances of his piano compositions premiered at the San Francisco New Keys Festival.
As a composer for film, his music for the Independent Short Film Misunderstood, directed by Pablo Herrán de Viu, was exhibited at the Screen Loud Film Festival in New York City, and the Festival Internacional de Cine Pobre de Humberto Solás in Habana City, Cuba.
Brian is the Co-Artistic Director for DETOUR, a composer collective and New Music Ensemble, which was recently featured as “one the top five new music events of 2011” from WQXR 105.9 FM. Brian was recently accepted to commence his PhD in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music for the Fall of 2011. For more information, please go to www.brianjmark.com