About Mark Marrington

 

I trained in composition and musicology at Nene College Northampton (B. A. Hons) and Leeds University (M. Mus., Ph.D.). My first instrument is the guitar, focusing on classical music in particular but also popular styles. I completed a doctorate in 2002, focusing on the music of the British composer, Denis ApIvor, and I have since published articles on his operatic and guitar works as well as given talks at performances.

I taught guitar privately from 1996, and as a peripatetic teacher for Calderdale local authority during 2000/2001. I joined Leeds College of Music in 1998, teaching initially at Further Education level, and then between 2003 and 2011 I taught in the Higher Education department of the college at both undergraduate and Masters degree levels. I taught across a considerable range of music-related modules during my time at the college for its Classical, Jazz, Popular Music and Music Production degrees, focusing in particular on music theory, composition and historical and cultural studies. In July 2011 I left Leeds College of Music to take up a Teaching Fellow position at the University of Leeds where I currently manage a BSc in Music, Multimedia and Electronics. I am also an external examiner at University of Brighton (City College), and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

In addition to my teaching work I am an occasional author and freelance consultant on educational music book projects, including Guitar from Scratch (with Microjazz’s Chris Norton, 1999) and the Usborne series ‘Very Easy Guitar Tunes’, ‘Easy Guitar Tunes’ and ‘Guitar Tunes for Children’, published in 2004. I have also worked freelance as a professional music typesetter for Cambridge University Press (Julian Rushton’s ‘Elgar: Enigma Variations’), Boosey and Hawkes (‘Guitar from Scratch’), The Consort and for numerous private individuals. As well as speaking at various international conferences I have also provided a season of pre-concert talks for the Airedale Symphony Orchestra.

I have experience as a composer and arranger of commercially orientated music for solo guitar and ‘classical’ ensembles in particular, as well as composing and producing tracks for personal pleasure. My collection, ‘Nineteen Gilbert and Sullivan Favorites for Classical Guitar’ was published by Mel Bay in 2004 and in 2005 my orchestral composition Fugue on ‘The Final Countdown’ was performed by West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra at the ‘Beached’ music festival in Scarborough. This irreverent piece was also performed by LCM’s Community Symphony Orchestra in Leeds in 2009.  Since 2010 I have been working on a project called ‘MadeinMIDI’, a series of machine-driven tracks composed entirely in software and designed to explore the nature of the one-hit wonder novelty record.

I am available for speaking engagements and guest lecturing, composition commissions, musical arrangements and private guitar and music theory tuition. Full details of my areas of musical specialism are available on request.