Assistant Conductor

Mark Tuning

Mark 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

John studied Theory and Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, and Huntingdon College; he studied piano with Annette (Trofimov) Freeze, Andrius Kuprevicius, Tatiana Tsukanova, and Liliane Quéstel; he was an organ and harpsichord student of Dr. Harald Rohlig and Gene Jarvis, and an organ student of 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 people.  John played the American première of the long-lost original score to F.W. Murnau’s Faust.  He worked with composer Carmine Coppola and director Francis Ford Coppola in the preparation of numerous film scores, and was the organist accompanying the San Francisco Symphony Chorus in the Oscar-nominated film Godfather III.   
A recipient of San Francisco Focus and San Francisco Cable Car awards, John wrote and performed a revue of Harold Arlen's music in Amsterdam and in the U.S.  He has done well over 100 musical theatre productions and served as Music Director for the Lamplighter Dinner Theatre and Maxwell Playhouse in Montgomery, Alabama.    
John has performed with the Masterworks Chorale, Cantare Con Vivo, Baroque Choral Guild, Contra Costa Chorale, Berkeley Community Chorus, and WomenSing.  He currently accompanies the San Francisco City Chorus, Vox Dilecti, San Francisco Boy’s Chorus, and Voices of Music Sacra.  He is 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.  In 2009 he was selected as the sole American adjudicator for the London Bank District English/American Organ Festival Playing Competition.