Assistant Conductor

MARK TUNING, Assistant Conductor, holds degrees in Music Education and Choral Conducting from George Fox College and the University of Oregon.  He is the Choral Director at St. Mary’s College where he also teaches conducting, music history, vocal pedagogy and voice lessons.  In addition, he is the Music Director at Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist.  He recently directed the California State University East Bay Chamber Singers in an arrangement of his jazz choral music and will be traveling with the CSUEB University Singers as a guest artist on tour to the World Choral Festival in Puebla, Mexico.  In the past he has served as Director of Music Ministries for churches in Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico and California.  He has also directed Jazz and Gospel Choirs at Mt. Hood Community College, Washing State University and the University of Oregon.  He has served as Music Director for the Chamber Music Society of Harney County, Oregon.  He has sung as section leader, soloist, and assistant director with the Oregon Repertory Singers, the Portland Symphonic Choir, Choral Cross-Ties Professional Chorus of Oregon, Nova Singers, Creative Voices, San Francisco Concert Chorale, and the Seattle Chamber Singers.  He is also an active member of the American Choral Directors Association and the California Association for Music Education.  Mark lives in the Oakland Hills where he teaches voice and enjoys his garden with his wife, Darla, and their three daughters, Abigail, Sarah and Madeline.

Accompanist

JOHN R.S. WALKO, accompanist, studied theory and composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Julliard School, and Huntingdon College; piano with Annet (Trofimov) Freeze, Andrius Kuprevisius, Tatiana Tsukanova, and Liliane Quéstael; organ and harpsichord with Dr. Harald Rohlig and Gene Jarvis, and John Balka, John performed on location with the symphony orchestras of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Havana, Cuba, in performances of the five-hour silent film Napoleon, to audiences of 30,000.  John played the American première of the long-lost original score to F.W. Murnau’s Faust.  He has worked with composer Carmine Coppola and director Francis Ford Coppola in the preparation of film scores, and performed with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in the Oscar-nominated Godfather III.  John accompanies the San Francisco City Chorus, San Francisco Boy’s Chorus, Cantare con Vivo, and Voices of Music Sacra.  He is the organist at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, and has served as the artistic director of the Lenten Organ Recital Series since 1994.  John has performed solo organ recitals in Paris, Prague, and on the famed Riga Dom organ in Latvia.