Mark Bowden is a composer living and working in London. His commissions comprise instrumental, chamber and orchestral music as well as music for voice, dance and film. Mark's music has been performed by many leading performers and ensembles at festivals and events throughout the UK, Europe and America and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Resonance fm. In 2006 he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize. Mark was appointed the first composer-in-residence at Handel House Museum from 2006-2007. He is a founder member of the critically acclaimed Camberwell Composers’ Collective and was New Music Associate at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge from 2008-2010. Mark recently completed new works for the Arditti Quartet, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Ulster Orchestra, the baritone Jeremy Huw Williams, CoMA at the Spitalfields Festival, the Richard Alston Dance Company, the London Handel Festival and W11 Opera.

Born in South Wales in 1979, Mark studied composition with Richard Steinitz at The University of Huddersfield graduating with first class honours and the university's Crabtree Prize. Supported by awards from the Countess of Munster Trust, the RVW Trust, the Arts Council of Wales and the Rivendell Trust he subsequently completed a Master’s degree in composition with Julian Anderson at the Royal College of Music where he won all of the major composition prizes including the Cobbett and Hurlstone Prize for outstanding creative achievement. In 2002 Mark was awarded an RVW Trust Bursary to study with Errollyn Wallen on the advanced composition course at the Dartington International Summer School. Mark completed his studies by participating in various courses and residencies at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme and undertaking doctoral research with Philip Cashian at Royal Holloway, University of London where he is now Director of Composition.

Mark’s abiding interest in dance has resulted in many collaborations with choreographers. During his studies Mark was invited to take part in the Choreographers and Composers Exchange at the South Bank Centre. More recently Mark worked with the Richard Alston Dance Company collaborating with Martin Lawrance to create a new music and dance work entitled stealing poison which toured the UK alongside new works by Richard Alston and Simon Holt. Mark has also created music for Christina Gonzalez’s production, Physical Sound, Moving Pictures, premièred at the Bonnie Bird Theatre at Laban, and Yasmin Lei’s dance project, Yin Yang Dance Project, premièred at the Yorkshire Dance Centre. In 2010 Mark was awarded a grant from the Cultural Olympiad to create a new music and dance collaborative project for emerging composers and choreographers.

Mark has extensive education and outreach experience, especially working with young people. As composer-in-residence at Handel House Museum Mark led creative projects in secondary schools, primary schools, for the RNIB and for Trinity College of Music. He has led projects for the award-winning Sound Inventors programme, participated in the spnm’s Composing 4 Kids and Adopt-A-Composer schemes and regularly undertakes freelance animateur work.

Mark is also an active saxophonist and performs with the Contemporary Consort, the Bergamo Ensemble and the Camberwell Composers’ Collective in London and the rest of the UK.