Mark Gayden - Past President

An avid teacher, Mark has been Associate Instructor at the Indiana University School of Music, a guest artist at the Australian National Academy of Music, bassoon tutor for the Australian Youth Orchestra, AYO National Music Camp and Young Symphonists programs, and Bassoon Instructor at the Elder Conservatorium since 2005. Mark has a Ph.D. in music from the University of Adelaide and was awarded a Dean of Graduate Studies Special Commendation for Thesis Excellence. In 2005 he won the ABC Young Performer of the Year wind, brass, and percussion section and in 1999 was awarded the grand prize in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Competition in the USA competing against players of all instruments.

Mark is a keen supporter of Australian composers and has commissioned and premiered works for the bassoon by Gerard Brophy, Andrew Schultz, Katy Abbott, James Cuddeford, Luke Altmann, and Charles Bodman Rae. In December 2013 many of the commissioned works were featured on ABC Classic Fm’s New Waves Podcast series forming a bassoon odyssey into new Australian bassoon works. In 2011 he was a featured artist on 3MBS’s Musical Portraits series and performed Berio’s notorious Sequenza XII for a solo in a live radio broadcast.

Mark’s teachers include Kim Walker and Stephane Levesque.