MARK ROSS CLARK, Director of the Astoria Vocal Arts Academy, has been a professional singer, a teacher of voice, opera workshop, a writer- and a director of plays, musicals, operettas and opera. He is the author of Singing, Acting, and Movement in Opera and Guide to the Aria Repertoire (Indiana University Press), and his most recent book is The Broadway Song, which includes a forward by Kristin Chenoweth and was published by Oxford University Press. He regularly presents singing/acting workshops (called Singergetics) for N.A.T.S. regional events and for universities throughout the country. Each summer Clark produces and directs operas for the opera company he founded in 2011, the Louisiana Opera, and also teaches and directs for Opera Maya in Mexico and Music in the Marche in Mondavio, Italy.
Clark began his career as a singer, and was a soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale for five years; he created and toured (and appeared on television) with Sing Out America! for Community Concerts with soprano Janet Payne and Robert Hunter, pianist; he was a baritone soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Dayton Symphony, Los Angeles Sinfonia and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and sang concerts in the Hollywood Bowl as soloist with Ethel Merman and for Frederick Loewe in Palm Springs. He also was a resident baritone in the Giessen Stadttheater in Germany for three years, performing in Opera, American Musicals, Operettas, and concerts.
He has earned performance degrees as well as a masters in vocal pedagogy, and a doctorate degree in opera production from the University of Washington in Seattle (Music and Theatre), and has served as director of opera at Pacific University, University of Washington, and Indiana University. Dr. Clark has been on the Board of the National Opera Association for eight years, and has been the Governor of the Southern Region of NOA. He is a well known adjudicator of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, having judged at regional and district auditions in Minneapolis, Atlanta, South Carolina, and Kansas City. His guest directing credits include productions in the U.S. as well as in Taiwan, England, and Brazil. Clark was on the faculty of the renowned Indiana University for 10 years, directing eight productions, and teaching graduate and undergraduate opera workshop classes. He has fourteen former Indiana University students who have been on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera, including Larry Brownlee, Jamie Barton, Ailyn Perez, and Kyle Kettelsen- and 12 graduates of his IU graduate workshop directing seminars who are now leading their own opera programs throughout the US and in Canada.
Dr. Clark is a Professor in Music and Theatre at the University of Louisiana in Monroe, teaching acting and opera workshop as well as directing productions. He also teaches the Alexander Technique, and is a certified instructor through Alexander Technique International.
He is highly regarded as a voice pedagogue, having taught at a number of colleges in Oregon and California.
MARK ROSS CLARK, Director of the Astoria Vocal Arts Academy, has been a professional singer, a teacher of voice, opera workshop, a writer- and a director of plays, musicals, operettas and opera. He is the author of Singing, Acting, and Movement in Opera and Guide to the Aria Repertoire (Indiana University Press), and his most recent book is The Broadway Song, which includes a forward by Kristin Chenoweth and was published by Oxford University Press. He regularly presents singing/acting workshops (called Singergetics) for N.A.T.S. regional events and for universities throughout the country. Each summer Clark produces and directs operas for the opera company he founded in 2011, the Louisiana Opera, and also teaches and directs for Opera Maya in Mexico and Music in the Marche in Mondavio, Italy.