Mark Winges was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and currently resides in San Francisco, where he is Volti’s Composer/Advisor. He is a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music / University of Cincinnati, San Francisco State University, and has studied at the Musikhögskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. His principal teachers have been Ellsworth Milburn, Henry Onderdonk, and Arne Mellnäs. He is the recipient of the UNESP Organ Competition Prize, the Dumler Award, a Barlow Competition prize, and has received grants from Meet the Composer, the California Arts Council, the American Music Center. He is also a MacDowell Colony Fellow.

Recent works include Gloss for string quartet, which was performed in San Francisco and Davis, California by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble,The Moon-Dance, which was performed in Gorizia, Italy and Ljubljana, Slovenia by the women's chorus Ancora, Two Voices for violin, cello and harp, (featured at the Music Exchange festival in Sofia, Bulgaria), Familial Banter, which was performed at the Camarissa Festival in Mexico City by Earplay, and also on the Music Now! series at Sacramento State University, Fog Patterns and Clouds, which was featured on a recent Under Construction program by the Berkeley Symphony, and The Oh of Moon and Piano (commissioned as part of the NEA / American Composer's Forum Continental Harmony project), which was performed by the Piedmont Choirs at the American Choral Director's Association national convention in San Antonio, and was included in the choir's European tour repertoire. His Unbecoming: Songs for Dancing for chorus and two percussionists was premiered in 2003 by Volti; the choir premiered his Rhythm & Motion: A Choral Symphony in 2004. Magic Strings was performed during the ISCM World Music Days held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2003.

A CD of his Aural Colors for orchestra is available on the VMM label and his Dusk Music II has been recorded by Synchronia. His most recent CD, Freed From Words: Choral Music of Mark Winges, has just been released on Innova Recordings.

Amanda MacBlane of the American Music Center's New Music Box says of this recording:

"the choral music of San Francisco-based composer Mark Winges probes deeply into the spiritual and sonic depths of the chorus." READ REVIEW