Contact info for Mark Sutton:
strutman2@yahoo.com
646-295-7914
BMI composer and producer Mark Sutton has composed for film, television, jazz clubs, and the concert hall in New York, Minneapolis, and around the country for the last 20 years. He produces content on a regular basis for Air America Radio and NPR. Currently based in New York at the Manhattan Producers Alliance, he has composed for symphony orchestra (Berkshire Symphony), chamber orchestra, big band, and numerous chamber ensembles and small jazz groups, as well as rock bands and synthesizer.
He composed music for the documentary feature, Pizza: The Movie. His works for television include a Public Service Announcement for City Harvest featuring Harrison Ford, "New York Feeds Me," which won a Telly Award for post-production, and a commercials for Goodys Family Clothing, Quaker Instant Oats, and the European Security Advocacy Group (ESAG).
He as also written music for the feature film Following Bliss, short films "Twenty Minutes of Immortality" (Independent Film Channel), "Zog's Place" (Audience Award Winner at First Sundays Comedy Festival), and "Fear News Network," an animated short. Mark composed music for another First Sundays Audience Award winner, the Roboto Supremo series created by Victor Varnado.
CD Cover from "Marriage
at the Panopticon" Buy
for $5
Along with his brother Ward, Mark co-produced, wrote, and scored the animated series "The Adventures of Trex, Blind Dater" that appeared on Radio Chick on the Prowl on the Metro Channel in New York. These and other samples are available on the Video Samples and Audio Samples pages.
Sutton was commissioned by the Hopkins Westwind Concert Band for their 20th Anniversary Celebration. Hopkins Westwind Ouverture, dedicated to Maestro Don Bates and the ensemble, was premiered on June 1, 2003 in Minneapolis.
Sutton's first solo album "Marriage at the Panopticon" was nominated by the Minnesota Music Awards for Best Jazz Recording, and highlighted the breadth of Sutton's composing abilities. Opined Tom Surowicz in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, it was "a slew of tunes that are complex, chameleonic and catchy. Sutton's writing traverses funk, gospel, neo-classical and ethnic sounds in addition to marvelous modern jazz...one of the best local CDs of the year." Sutton has been featured several times on Leigh Kammon's syndicated NPR show, The Jazz Image, and on Robin Robinson's "The Buzz" on KMSP.
As trumpet player and flugelhornist with the Minnepolis based Motion Poets, he toured the country playing many of the finest clubs, including The Knitting Factory (New York), The Dakota Bar and Grill (St. Paul), Baker's Keyboard Lounge (Detroit), The Drum Room (Kansas City), The Bop Shop (Chicago), The Jazz Kitchen (Indianapolis), Arnold's (Cincinnati) and Rasselas (San Francisco). The group has been featured in magazines such as Cadence, Down Beat, Jazz Times and Jazziz.
The group's recordings and performances received numerous high praises from audience and critics alike. The Chicago Tribune's Howard Reich called Sutton "a first-rate instrumentalist...Sutton played a ravishing fluegelhorn solo that was pure in tone, precise in pitch and exquisite in melodic detail. Whenever Sutton was at work, the evening's music-making showed a tonal beauty and an improvisatory elan."
The CD "Truth and Consequence" was named by Jazziz as one of the 10 best of 1995, and was nominated for Minnesota Music Awards Jazz Recording of the Year. The groups second album, "Standard of Living," was released in 1997."Stunning energy and passion, excitement and beauty, the music is a terrific blend of tradition and forward thinking," hailed Bob Protzman of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Mark is an Honors graduate of Williams College, Williamstown, MA, where he studied Music and Mathematics. He won the Berkshire Student Composer Competition with "Reflections on Evolution" which was performed by the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, and was also awarded the Kleinhandler Prize for Excellence in Music and the Barrow Prize for Composition.
