Mark Nowakowski is an emerging composer whose music has been recently performed by such notables as the Kronos Quartet, the Voxare Quartet, the Cracow Brass Quintet, Vox Musica of Sacramento, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony.  A proud native of Chicago, he completed his formal studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the University of Colorado, and Illinois State University, from which he graduated with  honors in both Music Composition and Arts Technology.

In the spring of 2009, he served as a Guest Lecturer and adjunct instructor at the Jagiellonian University's Transatlantic Studies Institute. In 2008, he served as the composer-in-residence for the Canton Symphony Orchestra.  He is a member of "Multimode Filter," an electronic music composer collaboration. He is also the music coordinator for the Foundation for Sacred Arts.

His Ave Maria was premiered in 2010 by the Choir of the Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  His Via Lucis for string orchestra was selected by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony as part of their 2008 Young and Emerging Composers Competition Concert.

The son of Polish immigrants, Mark's music derives a great deal of its experiential and aesthetic influence from the bicultural experience. Philosophically and spiritually, he is deeply influenced by the long history of Catholic Mysticism, and is always seeking the transcendent elements which must be present in truly useful art...