Early Days of UVMC: Bob Mark, Co-founder, Musician, Educator

How do you start a music education program? If you are Bob Mark (and two other co-founders) it starts with many, many meetings and a questionnaire to the Upper Valley community.

“Louis Cornell and I mailed nearly a thousand questionnaires to schools, businesses, folks in the arts, and folks distanced from the arts,” Mark said. “The responses prompted us to come up with some concepts of programming for suggested needs.”     

One of those needs was a choral component, and the third UVMC co-founder, Marcia Williams, was brought on board. 

“The three principals took a third and fourth look at the 200-plus responses to the questionnaire,” Mark said. “We invited a small group of diverse respondents to a board of directors and set out to form a nonprofit 501(c)3.”

Upper Valley Music Center began the fall 1995 term with a choral program, a community orchestra, seven in-school string programs, adult chamber music coaching, and a youth chamber orchestra. Mark served as the artistic director and led the chamber music coaching sessions. He later organized a string ensemble of 17 junior high and high school students who, a few years later, became paid interns teaching younger student-campers in UVMC’s summer classes.

“These interns were introduced to working with youngsters, and many developed the skill of the instrument petting zoo concept from the view of a teenager working with a younger age, family style,” Mark said. “They also performed as many as seven full length performances throughout the Upper Valley.”   

The first music gathering — “A Play In” — was chamber music for two blocks of time in the morning and an afternoon larger gathering of folks in an orchestral setting to end the day.  

“The program expanded under the guidance of experienced conductors, attracting faculty from Dartmouth and other institutions,” Mark said. “When our parent body came out with their neighbors for choral, chamber orchestra, or community orchestra performances, there was no difficulty filling venues.”

Mark notes the success of several UVMC programs, including a string ensemble tour group and the two-week summer program introducing chamber music. UVMC received the first award given by Chamber Music America for its programs in chamber music.

“String students spent a week sequestered at a lake house studying quartets and string orchestra literature for performances in a variety of venues: Woodstock Green, Hood Museum of Art, Saint-Gaudens National Park, and the Canaan Meeting House,” Mark recalled. “The end of that week was celebrated by a performance for parents and the lake area residents. It was held in ‘the shell’ (the neighbors’ garage) with folding chairs bought by neighbors and parents.”

Mark dedicated 10 years to the early formation of UVMC before stepping aside in 2005 to play quartets and visit with family in Kansas and California. He has many fond memories of UVMC, such as when “the conductor-less string orchestra or an advanced quartet connecting with audiences on their own. The genuine exchange between performer and listener is the essence of great music making. They brought their performance to the audience and the audience to their performance.”