Mark Bailey (Composer and Conductor)

Mark Bailey (born 1962) is an American conductor and baroque violist. He is the founder and artistic director of the American Baroque Orchestra. Bailey specializes in Slavic music of the 17th and 18th centuries, in addition to baroque, classical, and romantic repertoire, and is the current director of the Yale Russian Chorus. Bailey frequently guest conducts ensembles such as the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Cappella Romana, The Portland Baroque Orchestra and Pro Coro Canada. He often gives presentations on Slavic baroque music and historical performance practice, and has been a principal guest speaker for the Great Performers series, the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York City, the 2016 Musicking Conference at the University of Oregon, and the Indiana University International Performance Practice Conference.

Born and raised outside Rochester, New York, Bailey began his musical studies in viola and piano at an early age, and started singing through his involvement in the Eastman Children's Chorus. While concentrating in vocal performance and piano as an undergraduate, he began to study conducting with David Effron. As a graduate student he changed his focus to this field, studying conducting (and Liturgy and Russian) at Yale. Later he continued his conducting studies with Harold Farberman. Upon graduation Bailey worked as an assistant conductor while leaning toward Russian romantic and 20th century repertoire, opera, and Orthodox sacred music. In the 1990s he met baroque violinist Jaap Schröder, and began to study period performance practice.

In 2011 Bailey founded the American Baroque Orchestra (ABO), an authentic period instrument orchestra that performs throughout New England. The Summer of 2016 marks the inaugural Choral Festival of ABO, featuring works of Antonio Vivaldi and Jewish Baroque composer Salamone de Rossi, the latter reflecting the specialization of associate artistic director Kevin Sherwin. Bailey's former conducting positions have included artistic and music director of the New Haven Oratorio Choir and Orchestra, the Westchester Concert Singers, The New England Benefit Orchestra, and The Festival Chamber Orchestra at Yale. He was the assistant conductor of the Eastman Philharmonia, the opera department at the Eastman School of Music, and for the Heidelberg Castle Opera Festival in Heidelberg, Germany.

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