Programme:
TBC
In association with Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Biography:
Mark Zang began his musical journey studying the piano from roughly four years of age. He won a scholarship to the Purcell School of Music, where he studied for eight years, performing at venues such as Milton Court and Wigmore Hall. After Purcell, he became an organ scholar at Emmanuel College, where he studied Music as an undergraduate, followed by a Master’s degree in Composition; some highlights from this include a setting of tongue twisters, spam emails, and other nonsense texts, and a neo-Romantic piano concerto whose thematic material was based on internet memes. During his studies at Cambridge, Mark performed prolifically as both soloist and accompanist, appearing in several recitals per term; he directed Emmanuel College Choir’s summer tour in 2022, and was the winner of the University’s concerto competition, performing Britten’s Piano Concerto in 2023. Then, after working for two years—one as an organist, and one at a school—Mark returned to studies, beginning a Master’s in Piano Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama last September. There, he won the St James Chamber Prize with Theo; he was highly commended as accompanist in the English Song Prize; and he will perform in the final of the Ivan Sutton Chamber Prize. He recently conducted Guildhall’s production of the Broadway musical Little Women, to much success. Although Mark’s non-musical interests are rather slim, he enjoys a variety of niche hobbies, ranging from chess and cryptic crosswords, to finding data entry ‘weirdly therapeutic’ and eating cereal at odd times of day. Outside of the piano, Mark continues to explore other areas of music-making: he is currently the holder of the Mary and Bryn Walters Organ Scholarship at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and will be Organ Scholar at Royal Hospital Chelsea next academic year. He is a trained choral singer, having been a member of the Genesis Sixteen development programme; he has sung on BBC Radio 3 on several occasions, and is currently an Emerging Artist with St Martin’s Voices, with whom he performs regularly.
