MARK WINGES was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and currently resides in San Francisco, where he is Volti’s Composer/Advisor. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music / University of Cincinnati, San Francisco State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. His principal teachers have been Ellsworth Milburn, Henry Onderdonk, and Arne Mellnäs. He is the recipient of the UNESP Organ Competition Prize, the Dumler Award and has received grants from Meet the Composer, the California Arts Council and the American Music Center. He has had residencies at both the MacDowell Colony and Fundación Valparaiso (Spain).
His works have been performed by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Earplay, Works-in-Progress: Berlin, the Empyrean Ensemble, Volti, the Piedmont Children’s Choir, the San Francisco Girl’s Chorus, the Pharos Music Project (NY), Carmina Slovenica (Slovenia), the Guangdong Choir (China), The Crossing (Philadelphia), the Marin, Berkeley and Piteå (Sweden) Symphonies and many others.
Recent pieces include the song cycle Discover & Reveal for alto, viola and piano, which was premiered in Boston by Elizabeth Anker and his San Francisco Stopover for guitar, viola and cello, written for the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in San Francisco. His most recent large-scale projects are Mirrors: a Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra for bassist Michel Taddei, and pax penetralis (inner peace passing through) for the San Francisco Choral Society, Robert Geary, director.
But This Is This, a CD of his chamber music, was recently released on the Centaur label. Jason Victor Serinus, writing in SF Classical Voice notes that “The more you spend time with this music, the easier it becomes to sit back and go along for the ride.” READ REVIEW
Freed From Words, a CD of his choral music, was lauded by Amanda MacBlane of the American Music Center’s New Music Box with these words: “the choral music of San Francisco-based composer Mark Winges probes deeply into the spiritual and sonic depths of the chorus.” READ REVIEW