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Mark Doerries

Mark Brennan Doerries is an advocate of multi-sensory music and performance.  In 2004 Doerries founded the Luminescence Project, an ensemble dedicated to the performance, composition, and research of multi-sensory music.  The Luminescence Project recently performed in the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival, at the Indiana University Art Museum, and as part of the 2008 Bloomington Arts Festival.  In addition to performing, Doerries is active as an invited speaker and has recently presented papers at the Festival 500 Choral Conference in Newfoundland, CA and the 2009 Hawaii International Conference on the Humanities on the confluence of visual and aural performance arts.  This Fall Doerries will speak at the Modern Language Association's Annual Conference on Music in the Deep South and at the Conference on the Music of William Grant Still in Natchez, MS.  Doerries is completing a doctorate in conducting at Indiana University and holds a masters degree from Temple University in Philadelphia, additional graduate work in music theory from Queen’s College, City University of New York, and degrees in music and biology from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.  Mark also studied conducting and German in Freiburg, Germany and at Bard College, NY.

Doerries’ upcoming productions include a staged performance of JS Bach’s St. John Passion with electrified instruments and his own liturgical drama Songs of Searching.  In August Doerries traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil with a multi-media production of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the University of Sao Paulo chorus and orchestra.  Doerries currently directs the IU University Chorale Die Zauberflöte Opera Chorus and recently served as assistant conductor for IU Opera Theater's production of The Light in the Piazza. 


In addition to musical pursuits, Doerries’ research on chemosynthetic deep-sea ecosystems has been published in the journals Deep-Sea Research and Marine Ecology.  In 2001 Doerries collaborated on a discovery expedition to the previously uncharted ecosystem of the Blake Ridge Methane Seep 300 miles off the coast of South Carolina, diving over 2100 meters below the ocean’s surface in the deep-submergence vehicle ALVIN.  Also an avid sailor, Mark crewed aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer, a double masted brigantine tall sailing vessel, sailing from Woods Hole, MA to Bermuda conducting research on migration paths of eastern Atlantic eel populations documenting factors catalyzing their rapid population decline.

For further information and videos of the Luminescence Project's latest producitons visit: www.luminescenceproject.org