Mark Takeshi McGregor

Biography

Described as a “mind-blowing” musician of “huge physical energy” (Victoria Times Colonist), flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor is widely regarded as one of Canada’s leading interpreters of contemporary, avant-garde, and experimental music. As a soloist, chamber musician, improvisor, interdisciplinary artist, and as flutist of the internationally lauded Aventa Ensemble, McGregor has performed extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, Israel, and Australasia, including appearances at Festival Montréal-Nouvelles Musique, Music Gallery (Toronto), Vancouver New Music Festival, Modulus Festival (Vancouver), New Works Calgary, Athelas New Music Festival (Copenhagen), Internationale A•DEvantgarde-Festival (Munich), the Melos-Ethos International Festival of Contemporary Music (Bratislava), and Núcleo Música Nova’s 2016 International Symposium of New Music in Curitiba, Brazil.

Throughout his career, Mark has worked alongside an incredibly diverse roster of artists, including Icelandic experimental artist Björk; vocal artists Noa Frankl, Carla Huhtanen, and Heather Pawsey; violinists Dmitri Sitkovetsy, Mira Benjamin, and Müge Büyükçelen; cellist Stephen Isserlis; pianists Luciane Cardassi, and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa; percussionists Fabio Oliveira, Rick Sacks, and David Schotzko; and conductors Armin Jordan, Neville Marriner, Kent Nagano, Véronique Lacroix, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

McGregor has worked with some of the world’s leading composers, including Heiner Goebbels, Philippe Leroux, Natalia Solomonoff, Simon Steen-Andersen, Gilles Tremblay, Barry Truax, and Rolf Wallin. The commissioning of new works by contemporary composers is an important cornerstone of Mark’s work as a musician. Highlights include premiere performances of concerti by Anna Höstman and James Beckwith Maxwell, as well as the commissioning and premieres of solo and chamber works by Michael Finnissy (UK), Anders Nordentoft (Denmark), and Canadian composers Dániel Péter Biró, André Cormier, Patrick Giguère, Yota Kobayashi, Nicole Lizée, Simon Martin, Cassandra Miller, Jocelyn Morlock, Gregory Lee Newsome, Jordan Nobles, James O’Callaghan, Michael Oesterle, Rodney Sharman, Paul Steenhuisen, and Edward Top.

Roles

• Soloist