Mary Lou Newmark
Email: marylou@greenangelmusic.com
Mary Lou Newmark is an electric violinist, composer, and poet living in Los Angeles, California. Mary Lou has a traditional classical background with undergraduate and graduate degrees in violin performance from Southern Methodist University and the University of Southern California, and a masters degree in composition from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her compositions are far from traditional, as she bridges the gap between current electronic trends and the virtuosic violin techniques of the past. Her works encompass a wide range of styles and techniques, incorporating live performance, original poetry and electronically generated sounds into unique pieces that inhabit their own sound worlds. Ms. Newmark has given lecture/demonstrations of her music throughout the United States. Additionally, her works have been performed at international festivals in Corfu, Greece and Montreal, Canada. Her music has been featured on radio stations throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Sydney, Australia, New Zealand, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Siberia, The Netherlands and Zagreb, Croatia.
Ms. Newmark has received numerous awards for her talent as a performer and composer, including annual ASCAP Awards, a Subito Grant from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum, a Mu Phi Epsilon Grant, and recognition in the Luigi Russolo Competition for electronic music. Ms. Newmark is a 2004 "Alpert Award in the Arts" nominee for mid-career artists doing "exceptional work within their discipline." She was recently elected into the prestigious "Artists, Composers, Musicologists, Educators" (ACME) of Mu Phi Epsilon. Members of this elite group are widely known and acclaimed in their field, and are voted in on the basis of outstanding achievement.
In 2002, Ms. Newmark completed a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida working with composer Steve Mackey and the Talujon Percussion Quartet. Her interest in combining media and expanding her own creativity has lead to collaborations with poet and linguist, Laurel Airica, novelist, Ranbir Sidhu and percussionist/composer, Joseph Benzola. She plays freely improvised music with electric guitarist, Ed Nunnery and percussionist, John T. Coker in the band, "Natural Music." Ms. Newmark was commissioned by the Montpelier Chamber Orchestra to write an electric violin concerto. She premiered as soloist, "Canto de Luz - Song of Light, A Concerto for Electric Violin and Orchestra" in Vermont, March 15 and 16, 2003 to rave reviews. She has completed commissions from internationally acclaimed double bassist, Tom Peters and "Curvd Aire," a brass quintet in Sacramento, California. In December of 2006, her multimedia work about the homeless, "Street Angel Diaries" premiered in a new theatrical production at the Boston Court Performing Arts Complex in Pasadena, California. "Street Angel Diaries" was directed by Darin Anthony and produced by Zebulon Projects. The Los Angeles Times noted Newmark's "haunting score" and described her performance as "modernistic musical sketches on her neon-lit electric violin -- picture Laurie Anderson on a good hair day, but aiming more at emotions than intellect." Visit StreetAngelDiaries.com for details. Continuing her role as music educator, Ms. Newmark maintains a private violin and composition studio in Los Angeles.
Ms. Newmark is proud to be an elected member of the Executive Board of the International Alliance of Women in Music, and serve as the Chair of the "Search for New Music" Committee. In addition, she is the treasurer of the Los Angeles Alumni Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon, a professional music fraternity.
What she plays: Mary Lou plays a green acrylic 5-String Electric Violin, EV Luma, made by Tucker Barrett of T.F. Barrett Co. in Vermont. She uses an Eventide Ultra-Harmonizer, DSP 4000 effects processor and Pro Tools.
