Mark Bailey

Who is Mark Bailey?

Mark Bailey is an American conductor and baroque violist. He is the founder and artistic director of the American Baroque Orchestra, based in New Haven, Connecticut. Bailey specializes in Slavic music of the 17th and 18th centuries, in addition to baroque, classical, and early romantic repertoire, and is the current director of the Yale Russian Chorus. Bailey frequently guest conducts ensembles such as the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Cappella Romana, and Pro Coro Canada. He often gives presentations on Slavic baroque music, and has been a principal guest speaker for the Great Performers series and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Born and raised outside Rochester, New York, Bailey began his musical studies in viola and piano at an early age, and started singing through his involvement in the Eastman Children's Chorus. While concentrating in vocal performance and piano as an undergraduate, he began to study conducting with David Effron. As a graduate student he changed his focus to this field, studying conducting at Yale. Later he continued his conducting studies with Harold Farberman. Upon graduation Bailey worked as an assistant conductor while leaning toward Russian romantic and 20th century repertoire, opera, and Orthodox sacred music. In the 1990s he met baroque violinist Jaap Schröder, and began to study period performance practice.