Mark Fax

Mark Oakland Fax (15 June 1911 – 2 January 1974) was an American composer and a professor of music.

Child prodigy Born on June 15, 1911, in Baltimore, Maryland, Fax was a child prodigy. By age fourteen, Fax was employed as a theater organist playing scores to silent films in Baltimore's Regent Theater on Saturdays, and gospel music at an African American church on Sundays. then at Eastman earning a Master's degree in composition. While at Eastman he studied with Howard Hanson. He completed his bachelor's of music degree with honours; won the prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in a national competition; and was elected to the All-University Honour Society. Depression-era conditions compelled him to turn down graduate fellowship offers, and he accepted a position at Paine College in Georgia,

Public attention In the Washington limelight, he finally received public attention. Washington Post critic Paul Hume praised Fax's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano as "striking…difficult…a work of surprising contrapuntal texture" and declared the composer's oeuvre "music of rare power." 'Til Victory is Won (1967), Fax's epic operatic history of the African American experience, was mounted at the Kennedy Center. Hume says of Fax's opera ""A strong and valid artistic pronouncement" upon the trials of the time it was written. Mark Fax died January 2, 1974, in Washington, DC.

Works list

Voice

Deep river Dreams Five Black Songs (Advice to a child; Love; Only Dreams; Selfishness; The Refused) From an unknown soldier Go tell it on the mountain Great day! If he only walked in gardens Impulse Inspiration Longing Love May Day song Night truths Rain song Rondel Sunset Three Tenor Songs for the Worship Service (All people of the Earth; Dear Master in Whose Life; Wedding Song, Entreat me not to leave thee) Whatsoever a man soweth Who can find a virtuous woman?

Instrumental

Three piano pieces Toccatina Three organ pieces The lost zoo. Symphonic suite

Opera A Christmas Miracle Till Victory is Won

Reference List