Mark Seto leads a wide-ranging musical life as a conductor, scholar, teacher, and violinist. He is Artistic Director and Conductor of The Chelsea Symphony in New York City, and Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Music at Brown University, where he directs the Brown University Orchestra and teaches courses in music history, theory, and conducting.

Since Mark’s tenure with The Chelsea Symphony began in 2011, the ensemble has strengthened its commitment to new music by programming dozens of world premieres and establishing an annual competition for early-career composers; broadened its reach with debut performances at David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the DiMenna Center for Classical Music; and established a program to bring music to New York City correctional facilities. Recent highlights include an Earth Day concert with TCS at the American Museum of Natural History featuring Become Ocean by Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams, the East Coast premiere of Kinan Azmeh’s Clarinet Concerto with the Brown University Orchestra, and collaborations with violinist Jennifer Koh, composer/pianist Vijay Iyer, and composer John Harbison.

Mark holds a BA in Music from Yale University and an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Historical Musicology from Columbia University. He studied at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine, where he served as an assistant to music director Michael Jinbo for two seasons. His conducting teachers include Lawrence Leighton Smith and Shinik Hahm, and he has participated in workshops with Kenneth Kiesler, Daniel Lewis, Donald Portnoy, Donald Thulean, and Paul Vermel. He is a recipient of the Yale Friends of Music Prize and has been honored with an ASCAP Morton Gould award. www.markseto.com