Mark Engebretson,
DMA,
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
(born 1964, California) is a saxophonist and composer. His music combines
computer music
Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ap ...
and live performance, the latter usually performed on saxophone.
Biography
Engebretson was born in California and raised in
Alexandria, Minnesota. His family later moved to
North St. Paul, Minnesota
North Saint Paul (abbreviated North St. Paul) is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States, located east-northeast of the city of Saint Paul. The population was 11,460 at the 2010 census.
North Saint Paul is a distinct city, and not ...
. His father, a retired doctor, is also a saxophonist as well as a clarinettist. Engbretson attended
St. Olaf College
St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after the King and the Patron Saint Olaf ...
for a year before transferring to the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
.
He is currently Associate Professor of Composition and Electronic Music at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro and director of the Alice Virginia Poe Williams Electronic Music Studio at that university. He is a member of Red Clay Saxophone Quartet and was formerly a member of the Vienna Saxophone Quartet. Aside from Northwestern University, he also studied at the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
and the
Conservatoire de Bordeaux. His teachers have included
Frederick Hemke
Fred Hemke, DMA ''(né'' Frederick Leroy Hemke Jr.; July 11, 1935 – April 17, 2019) was an American virtuoso classical saxophonist and influential professor of saxophone at Northwestern University. Hemke helped raise the popularity of classi ...
,
Jean-Marie Londeix
Jean-Marie Londeix (20 September 1932) is a French saxophonist born in Libourne who studied saxophone, piano, harmony and chamber music.Ingham, Richard (ed.)''The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone'' Cambridge University Press (1998) p. 169. Umb ...
,
M. William Karlins,
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...
,
Marta Ptaszynska
Marta Ptaszyńska (born 29 July 1943) is a Polish composer, percussionist and professor of music at the University of Chicago. She has been described by the Polish Music Center of the University of Southern California as "one of the best known Poli ...
,
Michael Pisaro
Michael Pisaro (born 1961 in Buffalo, New York) is a guitarist and composer. A member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, he has composed over 80 works for a great variety of instrumental combinations, including several pieces for variable ins ...
and
Jay Alan Yim
Jay Alan Yim (born April 24, 1958) is an American composer of Chinese descent and recipient of a 1994 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Early life and education
Yim was born into a Chinese family in St. Louis, Missouri on April 24, 1958. He attended th ...
.
Music
As a composer his influences include
Eugène Bozza
Eugène Joseph Bozza (4 April 1905 – 28 September 1991)Grove Music Online: "Bozza, Eugène"; accessed 20 September 2014, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/03791. was a French composer and violinist. He was one of t ...
and
Paule Maurice
Paule Charlotte Marie Jeanne Maurice (29 September 1910 – 18 August 1967) was a French composer.
Life and career
Maurice was born in Paris to Raoul Auguste Alexandre Maurice and Marguerite Jeanne Lebrun. Registration lists at the Conservat ...
.
Eric Stokes introduced him to
experimental music
Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
and ''found sound'' (i.e.
Found art using sounds as its material).
Engebretson has received commissions from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
's Fromm Music Foundation (2007) and the Thomas S. Kenan Center for the Arts (2008). His compositions have been performed at
Indiana State University New Music Festival (Terre Haute, Indiana) and
International Society for Contemporary Music
The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music.
The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...
Festivals (Tirana, Albania and Baku, Azerbaijan) as well as several lesser known contemporary music festivals such as Wien Modern (Vienna), Gaida Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania), Ny Musikk (Bergen, Norway) and the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival. The world premiere of ''SaxMax'' was given at the 14th
World Saxophone Congress in Ljubljana, Slovenia by James Romain.
References
External links
*
*
PublisherEffiny Music
PublisherApoll Edition, Vienna
Mark Engebretsonmember page on Society of Composers
Faculty Profile University of North Carolina at Greensboro, School of Music
Profileon
Hartwick College Music Festival website
Innova Records listingfor recordings on Innova label'
on World Saxophone Congress website
Red Clay Saxophone Quartet - Mark Engebretsonprofile on Steve Stusek personal website
Programme notes with biography and profilefor the North American Saxophone Alliance 2004 biennial conference
{{DEFAULTSORT:Engebretson, Mark
21st-century classical composers
American male classical composers
American classical composers
University of Minnesota alumni
American classical saxophonists
American male saxophonists
Living people
People from Douglas County, Minnesota
1964 births
Conservatoire de Bordeaux alumni
21st-century American composers
21st-century American saxophonists
21st-century American male musicians