about mark

Mark is an active performer in the Portland area in both jazz and classical genres. He creates soulful, moving performances with vocal style and energy, and his flexible musical style allows him to appear with a variety of ensembles including the Rose City Saxophone Quartet, Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra, Beaverton Symphony, Southwest Washington Wind Symphony, and the Willamette Falls Symphony. Mark is equally active as a soloist and was a winner of the Rocky Mountain Concerto Competition and has performed as a soloist with University of Northern Colorado Wind Ensemble and with the UNC Symphony Orchestra.  

A sought after clinician and pedagogue, Dr. Pipes has over 20 years of experience and maintains a thriving studio that includes middle school, high school, and collegiate level saxophonists. In addition to lessons, Dr. Pipes coaches sax quartets, sax ensembles, and jazz ensembles. Former students have gone on to receive accolades and win competitions such as the Rocky Mountain Solo Competition and the Oregon State Solo Championships, and they have also gone on to teach, pursue graduate degrees, and perform at the professional level. In the classroom, Dr. Pipes has taught courses on Music History at Aims Community College, Music Theory at Linn-Benton Community College, and Jazz Improvisation at Union High School. 

  His research is in the field of saxophone acoustics and perception. His doctoral thesis entitled, “A Comparison of Saxophone Mouthpieces Using Fourier Analysis to Quantify Perceived Timbre,” used Fourier Analysis to measure timbre brightness. In a collaboration with JodyJazz and Theo Wanne, Dr. Pipes used the timbre brightness as a tool to discover the influence of saxophone mouthpiece characteristics on resulting timbre. He has presented on this subject at the 2017 NASA Region II in Las Cruces and the 2019 NASA I Region in Ellensburg, WA.

  Mark holds a Doctor of Arts in Music from the University of Northern Colorado with an emphasis in saxophone pedagogy and a secondary emphasis in jazz. Mark earned a Master of Music and a Certificate of Performance degree from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Delaware. Mark studied with Dr. Frederick Hemke, Dr. Andrew Dahlke, David Caffey, Tony Garcia, Dr. Jonathan Helton, Peter Hill, and Charles Salinger. 

 Professional associations: 

NASA, CMS, saxophonist.org, JEN, AFM-Local 99