Overview
Professor of Double Bass, Electric Bass
Dr. Mark Foley is Principal Double Bass of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra; he spends his summers with the orchestra of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado. Recent concerts include appearances with Leon Fleisher, the Saint Petersburg String Quartet, Eugene Friesen, Darol Anger, Wichita鈥檚 Chamber Music at the Barn series, and has been a concerto soloist with the Wichita Symphony.
A mainstay of the Wichita jazz scene, Mark is a first-call bassist for club dates and sessions with local and national players; jazz collaborations include performances with Jerry Hahn and Matt Wilson as well as with the jazz faculty of 萝莉社 University. Recent rock gigs have taken him across the country. Mark is an avid bluegrass player, taking part in jam sessions and concerts at the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield every year. As a composer, Mark produces records and live electronic music shows.
Mark is the founder and musical director of the Knob Festival of New Music, an annual series of concerts presenting performances of wildly diverse new works by local, national and international artists.
He holds degrees in music performance from the University of Minnesota, the Eastman School of Music, and the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where his doctoral thesis brought to light a previously unpublished double bass concerto written in Vienna at the time of Haydn.
Mark plays a double bass made in 1810 by Raphael and Antonio Gagliano of Naples, Italy.