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Peter Mark (born 31 October 1940, New York) is an American violist, conductor, opera teacher, and the Artistic Emeritus of the Virginia Opera, where he served as General and Artistic Director from 1975 to 2010.

Education
As a child, Mark attended P.S. 206, Cunningham Jr. High, and then James Madison High School in Brooklyn. While there, he performed as chief boy soprano of the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus (under Maestro Walter Taussig) for three seasons from 1953-6. He was a soloist in productions of La Boheme, Andrea Chenier, and as the Shepherd Boy in a new production of Tosca by Dino Yannopoulos, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. At Columbia University (1956-1961) he was awarded a B.A. in Music cum laude where he performed as Concertmaster of the University Symphony. Consecutive with his senior year at Columbia (1960-61) he enrolled in the M.S. in Music Performance course at The Juilliard School of Music (1960-1965) studying first as a violin pupil of Joseph Fuchs and then as a viola pupil of Walter Trampler. He served as the Principal Violist of the Juilliard Orchestra under Jean Morel from 1960-3.

Professional Career
Mark's first professional role came the year before leaving Juilliard, working as Principal Violist of the Chicago Lyric Opera in their 1964 and 1966 seasons. Following graduation he performed with orchestras around New York, including the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, Princeton Symphony Orchestra and many others. During this period he was recruited to teach viola and opera at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1965-1992). There he first met the Scottish composer, fellow professor and wife-to-be, Thea Musgrave. Whilst serving as Guest Professor, she wrote her viola and cello duet Elegy for Peter Mark. He was a frequent solo violist and chamber musician on the West Coast and, while taking a year-long sabbatical from his professorship, Mark became Assistant Principal Violist at the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1968-9). Mark married Musgrave in 1971. They spent time early in their marriage engaging in viola-piano duo tours to radio stations in Europe. She went on to write several works for him including her Viola Concerto(1973), which Mark premiered at the BBC Proms that year with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Musgrave conducting. Spending more and more time in the UK and Europe, Mark took up a teaching position in the newly-merged Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK (1974-75).

Virginia Opera

However, his stay in the UK was not to last long. In 1975, Mark was invited by its Founding President Edythe C. Harrison and opera stage director David Farrar to pick up and run the fledgling Virginia Opera in Norfolk, USA. Mark returned with his wife to America where he served as conductor, Artistic and General Director of the opera company for over thirty-five years. There Mark and the Virginia Opera gave the US premiere of Musgrave’s seminal opera Mary, Queen of Scots in 1977 and commissioned her fifth opera A Christmas Carol(1979). Mark conducted the forces of the Royal Opera House at Sadler’s Wells in the European premiere of the work, which was later broadcast by Granada TV.

Over three decades, Mark developed a reputation for choosing and conducting singers destined for world stages (Diana Soviero, Jake Gardner, Ashley Putnam, Frederick Burchinal, Jeannine Altmeyer, Barbara Conrad. Jon F. West, Florence Quivar, John Aler, Cynthia Haymon, Renee Fleming, Victoria Livengood, Jay Hunter Morris, Lawrence Brownlee, Christian Van Horn, Brandon Jovanovich) as well as developing his own reputation as a conductor which brought about guest appearances with opera houses (see list below). During this period, he also held other artistic leadership positions at the International Opera Alliance (2004-2014), the Buck Hill - Skytop Music Festival (2009 & 2010) (now known as the Pocono Mountains Music Festival) and Lyric Opera Virginia (2010-2013). In 2005, Mark was invited to conduct the Shanghai Opera in performances of Tosca to open the new Oriental Opera House in Shanghai.

Opera Coaching

Since 2013, Mark has worked as an opera coach working predominantly with North and South American singers in Los Angeles and New York City, where he and his wife Thea live in alternating seasons. He has been invited to give masterclasses in San Jose, San Francisco, Shanghai, Beijing, London, Maputo and Cuba. In recent years, Mark has worked with ‘body logic’ specialist Karin Fantus to develop new opera training techniques focused on sensory awareness and full body support of singing inspired by an amalgamation of her background (in 'Gyrotonic Method', yoga, rolfing, massage, meditation, pilates and ‘The M.E.L.T. Method’) taught simultaneously with Mark’s guidance in vocal projection, technique and style in the operatic repertoire.

Official Website of Peter Mark

Virginia Opera Conducting Appearances
With Virginia Opera Mark conducted over 700 performances of 110 productions statewide, including many Virginia Premieres:
 * La Fanciulla del West (Feb/March 1984);
 * Giordano’s Andrea Chenier (Jan/Feb 2003);
 * Richard Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander (Jan/Feb 1996), Die Walkuere 2002), Tristan und Isolde (Jan/Feb 2005);
 * Richard Strauss’ Salome (Nov 1994), Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra (Jan/Feb 2002);
 * Handel’s Julius Caesar (Jan/Feb 1997), Rodelinda (Feb 2000), and Agrippina (Jan/Feb 2007).

He also conducted the US Premiere of Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots (1978) as well as the world premieres of A Christmas Carol (1979), Harriet, The Woman Called Moses (March 1985) and Simon Bolivar (Jan 1995).

Notable International Conducting Appearances

 * A Christmas Carol, Royal Opera House at Sadler’s Wells UK (1979)
 * Mary, Queen of Scots, New York City Opera, Lincoln Center (1981)
 * La Boheme, Torre del Lago Puccini Festival, Italy (1996)
 * Turandot; Madam Butterfly, Opera Nacional de Mexico in Bellas Artes (1989)
 * Porgy and Bess, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo Teatro Municipao (1992)
 * Carmen, Pacific Opera Victoria, Canada (1998)
 * Ballo in Maschera; La Traviata, Krakow Opera (2004)
 * Tosca, Shanghai Opera (2005)
 * Two opera seasons, Maputo International Music Festival, Mozambique (2009; 2010)

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