Dr. Mark P. Malkovich, III

General Director  v  2000 Biography

Dr. Mark P. Malkovich, III is acknowledged as an expert in the field of chamber music.  As General Director of the Newport Music Festival for the past twenty-six seasons, he has brought the Festival to national and international prominence.  His avid awareness of the international music scene and his idea of a music-making community of artists creates a festival that really feels like a festival.

The list of international artists who made their American debuts in Newport under his patronage is legendary—pianists Bella Davidovich, Andrei Gavrilov, Jean-Philippe Collard, François-René Duchable, Dimitris Sgouros, Maria-João Pires, Valery Afanassiev, Jean-Louis Steuerman, Michel Dalberto, Igor Zhukov, Mikhail Pletnev, Ekaterina Novitskaya, Andrea Lucchesini, Pietro De Maria, Peter Rösel, Pascal Devoyon, Hugh Tinney, Alain Jacquon, Mûza Rubackyté, Constantin Lifschitz and Nikolai Lugansky; violinists Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Peter Oundjian, Raphael Oleg, Augustin Dumay, Ilya Kaler, and Stephan Milenkovic; violist Gerard Caussé; cellist Alexander Rudin; flutist Patrick Gallois; clarinettist Emma Johnson; bassoonist Kim Walker; baritone Detlef Roth; contrabassist Alberto Bocini and more than fifty other stellar artists and groups.  He brought back to America, after absences of many years, such luminaries as pianists Maria Tipo, Dubravka Tomšič, Sergio Fiorentino, Dame Moura Lympany, Fou Ts’ong, Magda Tagliaferro, Halina Czerny-Stefanska and Vlado Perlemuter.  Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen was heard in Newport on his very first American tour.  Bolshoi Opera stars Makvala Kasrashvili and Zurab Sotkilava first appeared in America at the Newport Music Festival.

Malkovich is a pianist of note himself, having studied with Dorothy Crost Bourgin of the Chicago Musical College, William Beller, Chairman of the Piano Department of Columbia University, and Adele Marcus of the Juilliard School.  He is the former Executive Director of the Palm Beach Festival and has served as President of the Chopin Foundation of the U.S.  He is a popular lecturer and TV and radio personality, appearing frequently on Boston’s WGBH, New York’s WQXR and the nationally syndicated “A Note to You.”  His critique of the 1985 Chopin Competition in Warsaw appeared in Musical America, and for two years Malkovich hosted a regional weekly radio program, “Sunday Morning at the Newport Music Festival.”  He is currently Artistic Director of Regis College’s “President’s Series” and Bryant College’s “President’s Concert Series,” featuring many Newport Music Festival artists, and writes a record review column for the nationally distributed Newport Life magazine. His lectures for Salve Regina University’s “Circle of Scholars” and his recent lecture “300 Years of Western Music” at the Naval War College garnered rave reviews.

Malkovich’s personal record collection of more than 15,000 discs contains many rarities, especially of pianists, gathered from his travels around the world.  He is listed in Who's Who in America, Celebrities in International Music, and Leading Personalities of the World.  He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Salve Regina University in 1993 and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Rhode Island in 1994.  In November 1997, he was invited as the sole American adjudicator to the First Tbilisi International Piano Competition in Georgia.  In 1998, Business Volunteers for the Arts/RI presented him with the Individual Achievement Award.  In May 1999, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.  In April 2000, he was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, one of only 390 illustrious Rhode Islanders in the history of the State, from Roger Williams to the present.