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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 Ensemble Ibis, 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 Marsyas Consort (Greece), the Empyrean Ensemble, Volti, the Piedmont Children's Choir, the San Francisco Girl's Chorus, The Crossing, Carmina Slovenica (Slovenia), the Guangdong Choir (China), Aarhus Pigekor (Denmark), the Marin, Berkeley and Piteå (Sweden) Symphonies and many others.
His When Wood and Metal Became Alive for sinfonietta was premiered by Ensemble Ibis at the Universty of Miami in April, 2026 and his Spinning a DreamSong for treble voices and fixed media electronics received its first outing by the Piedmont Choirs in March, 2026. It was subsequently featured at the Golden Gate Interntaional Choral Festival in July. His The Guardians of Yggdrasil, a staged work for chorus and fixed media electronics, with lighting and set design by Mitchell Ost and stage direction by Barbara Heroux, was premiered by Volti, Robert Geary, condictor, at Zspace in San Francisco in June, 2025. In June, 2024, Blaise Bryski performed an all-Winges concert of his works for solo piano at Old First Concerts in San Francisco. Mr. Bryski subsequently recorded these pieces, which were released by Ravello Recordings in 2025. Recent large-scale works include two concerti: Adventure in the Air, a concerto for soprano saxophone and wind ensemble commissioned by a consoritum of bands, and Breath & Hammers, a concerto for piano and wind ensemble, which was premiered 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. 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. His most recent chamber music album is Night-Voiced, a collection of ensemble and solo works for viola. His Loki's Lair, written for 8 Strings & a Whistle, was included on their album ...and nothing remains the same.... 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) the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL (2013) and the Visby (Sweden) International Centre for Composers (2022). He was at Villa Montalvo as a Lucas Artist Resident in 2023, 2025 and 2026. |
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