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Mark Winges was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and currently resides in San Francisco, where he is composer / advisor for the chamber choir Volti. He was also composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Choral Artists for the 2012 / 13 season. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music - University of Cincinnati, SF State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. His principal teachers were Ellsworth Milburn, Henry Onderdonk, and Arne Mellnäs. His works have been performed by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Cornell Wind Symphony, the Verge Ensemble, the American Modern Ensemble, Earplay, Eight Strings and a Whistle, Works-in-Progress: Berlin, the Empyrean Ensemble, Volti, the Piedmont Children's Choir, the San Francisco Girl's Chorus, the Pharos Music Project (NY), The Crossing, Carmina Slovenica (Slovenia), the Guangdong Choir (China), Aarhus Pigekor (Denmark), the Marin, Berkeley and Piteå (Sweden) Symphonies and many others.
His Spun Light, a pandemic-inspired "distanced" concerto in three movements for violin and small ensemble, was premiered in a special online concert by violinist Hrabba Atladottir and The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble in February, 2021. It can be viewed here. As live concerts were returning in August, 2021, pianist Nicholas Phillips premiered his Year-End Nocturne at the San Francisco International Piano Festival. Recent large-scale works include Breath & Hammers, a concerto for piano and wind ensemble, which was premiered in October, 2017 by pianist Blaise Bryski and the Cornell University Wind Symphony, conducted by James Spinazzola; it also received a performance at Yale University during the College Band Director's National Association Eastern Division Conference in March, 2018. His Pandora's Gift, a 35-minute staged work for unaccompanied treble choir and mixed choir, set to a libertto by Denise Newman with choreography by Erika Chong Shuch, lighting design by Allen Willner and costumes by Katherine Nowacki was premiered to great acclaim by Volti and the Piedmont Children's Choir in May, 2015. His Loki's Lair, written for 8 Strings & a Whistle was featured on the Festival of New American Music at Sacramento State University in November, 2018. 8SW subsequently gave its New York premiere at the Tenri Cultural Institute. The piece is included on their recent CD, ...and nothing remains the same... Other recent pieces include The Tapestry of Unknown Islands for viola and piano, written for Kurt Rohde, who, along with pianist Jared Redmond, premiered the work in Davis, Sacramento, San Francisco and Berkeley, CA, Letters for mixed chorus and string quartet (commissioned by Volti and the Left Coast Ensemble), The Moon Dreams of Jacqueline (commissioned by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music for the Friction String Quartet), and ShapeShifter (performed by the American Modern Ensemble). Current and upcoming projects include Light Becoming Song, a collection of eighteen short pieces for organ, inspired by the abstract Tantric paintings selected by Frank AndreĢ Jamme in his book Tantra Song, the large chamber ensemble work Solstice Dreams, which will be premiered at the University of Miami in October, 2022, Adventure in the Air, a concerto for soprano saxophone and wind orchestra to be premiered at Cornell University in February, 2024, and a new work for solo piano with video for pianist Luo Ting. His most recent CD is Night-Voiced, a collection of his chamber works for viola. An earlier CD of his chamber music titled But This Is This is available on the Centaur label. In a review of that CD, Jason Victor Serinus characterizes Winges as “a composer who, while serious in intent, enjoys writing music that enables performers to indulge in and relish their instrumental back-and-forths”. 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.” Mark is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony, where he has had multiple residencies. He has also had residencies at Fundación Valparaiso, in Mojácar, Spain (2010) and the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL (2013). He was in residence at the Visby (Sweden) International Centre for Composers (2022). |
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