Mark Landson, Composer/Viola

The music of Mark Landson has been described as “a wonderful melding of pop idiom and classical craft”. Classically trained from age six on violin, viola, and piano, Mark Landson began to find his voice as a composer while singing and playing keyboards in rock bands in high school. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music, where his most important influences were the music of Bartok, Berg, Hindemith, Reich, Britten, Respighi, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, and New Order. Although he studied classical composition technique and harmony, he concentrated mostly on pop music composition, as the expression of contemporary classical composers seemed to lack the relevant voice he was seeking.

After Eastman, he moved to Spain to become a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Granada, where he played viola, composed arrangements for that orchestra, and continued his development as a composer in various pop music projects. These divergent interests ultimately led him to experiment with how classical form and composition could incorporate pop music elements in a way that would provide for both a wide range of expression and connection to the contemporary world.