Mark Winges

Mark Winges is resident composer/advisor for the chamber choir Volti, a position he has held since 1990. He was also composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Choral Artists in the 2012–13 season. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, San Francisco State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. Gramophone magazine has characterized his music as “stylistically adventurous in setting, but strongly beholden to conventional means.” San Francisco Classical Voice describes him as “a composer with the skill and self-confidence to write music that is clear, direct, and at times even simple, but not at all simple-minded.” Past residencies include the MacDowell Colony, Fundación Valparaiso (Mojácar, Spain), Ragdale Foundation and the International Centre for Composers (Visby, Sweden).

The Guardians of Yggdrasil, a staged work for chorus and fixed electronic media, was premiered in June, 2025 at Z Space in San Francisco. It was partially written at Montalvo in the fall of 2023. Other recent pieces include Adventure in the Air, a concerto for soprano saxophone and band, which was commissioned by a consortium of collegiate institutions, and Spun Light, a “distanced” concerto written for Icelandic violinist Hrabba Atladottir and the Left Coast Ensemble. His Spinning a DreamSong for treble-voiced choir and fixed electronic media will be premiered in the spring of 2026. He is currently working on When Wood and Metal Became Alive, a chamber orchestra work for Ensemble Ibis at the University of Miami.