Bio

Mark Mandarano enjoys an international career as a conductor. He has conducted performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and other important venues in the U. S. and abroad. He conducted two new works with the New York City Opera in 2009 and has served as principal guest conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. In both 2017 and in 2018, he was invited to act as a cultural ambassador to Russia leading tours of the American music throughout Russia performing Gershwin (2017) and Bernstein (2018), with sold-out performances in Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Nizhny-Novgorod, Volgograd, Novosibirsk and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Svetlanov.” In 2021, he commissioned new works for the Macalester Orchestra intended for asynchronous performance -- the subsequent video of these 5 Pandemic World Premieres has received nearly 50,000 views on youtube. In 2022, Mandarano was named the Artistic Director of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies, one of the premier training programs for young musicians in the country.

 Mandarano has led performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Nürnberger Symphoniker and the Ural Philharmonic. He has worked with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christoph von Dohnányi, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Roger Norrington, Valery Gergiev, Leon Botstein, Osmo Vänskä Carl St. Clair and Leonard Slatkin. Staff positions include those with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival. An advocate of the music of living composers, he has conducted world premieres and performances of works by Karel Husa, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, John Corigliano, Ellen Zwilich, Melinda Wagner, Libby Larsen, David Bruce, Nico Muhly, Roger Zare, Randy Bauer and others. His association with Slatkin led to Maestro Mandarano conducting the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. In 2005, he was a prize winner in the conducting competition of Nuremberg, Germany. Mandarano is the artistic director and conductor of the Sinfonietta of Riverdale, which he founded in 2008. An ensemble of ten to twenty musicians, each one a soloist and chamber musician of the highest quality, the Sinfonietta brings music from all eras to the Bronx borough of New York City. (“Some Big Music In Little Riverdale,” NY Daily News; “Off‐the‐hook fabulous,” Time Out, NY; “High culture has migrated northward,” The New Yorker; “led by a world‐class conductor, along with internationally‐recognized musicians,” Riverdale Press). The Sinfonietta has two recordings on Arabesque and a CD on Albany Records. Mandarano holds degrees from Cornell University and Peabody Conservatory. He is an Associate Professor and Director of Instrumental Music at Macalester College.

For a list of groups conducted and other associations, go here.