The American conductor Mark Laycock has performed a wide range of repertoire in his many operatic and orchestral performances not only in the US and Far East but also Europe, where he currently resides in Berlin.

His international schedule has included performances with the orchestras of London, Paris, Moscow, Kiev, Montréal, Bogotá, Mexico City, Seoul, and Taipei among others.  He appears regularly with the Wiener Kammerorchester, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra with whom he has already appeared during the 2011/2012 season, as well as the Bochumer Symphoniker in Germany and the Georges Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest.   He made a welcome return to the Stavanger Orchestra for a series of three concerts in January 2012 and conducts again in Vienna next season.

Mark Laycock’s additional European engagements have included performances with the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Jaener Philharmonie, Neubrandenburg Philharmonie, Bayerische KammerPhilharmonie, Festival Strings Lucerne and the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskappele Weimar, as well as appearances in Finland.   He remains a regular visitor to the United States, taking the Wiener Kammerorchester on tour in January 2012 for a very successful programme of Wagner, Brahms and Beethoven.  He returns to New Jersey Symphony and Opera during the summer of 2012, following the acclaimed response to the performance of Mendelssohn Symphony No 2  in July 2011 and earlier full productions of Don Pasquale and The Barber of Seville with Opera New Jersey.

At the age of 21, Mark Laycock made his conducting debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, returning to lead the Orchestra on numerous occasions.  His multiple re-engagements also include those with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London at the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in St. Paul as well as on tour.  As a participant of Project Uplift, in June 2005, he traveled to Ekaterinburg, Russia to donate his services for a performance of the Verdi Requiem with the Sverdlovsk State Philharmonic.  The 2006-2007 season included his first appearance in Asia, conducting the TJB Orchestra Daejeon, with an immediate re-engagement and invitation to return to Korea to conduct the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra at the Seoul Arts Center.

Maestro Laycock holds the distinction of being the first non-Russian ever invited to appear at the Moscow Autumn Festival, conducting a programme at the famed Tchaikovsky Hall.  He also conducted the inaugural concert at the new Cairo Opera House in 1988, as well as the sold-out first concert of classical music ever made open to the public in Amman, Jordan. This sequence of events was chronicled in Classical Caravan, an Emmy Award-winning television documentary produced by NJN public television.  His debut in Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes in 2001 resulted in an immediate invitation to return the following year to teach a week-long master class for conductors.  

Maestro Laycock began conducting at the age of 16, advancing his studies at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music and from 1975 to 1979 studied as a violist under the tutelage of the Curtis String Quartet in Philadelphia. Maestro Laycock was a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, and the winner of the Leopold Stokowski Memorial Conducting Competition in association with the Philadelphia Orchestra.  From 1995-1998 Maestro Laycock was also Music Director of Orchestra London Canada and was subsequently appointed Associate Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

As a published composer, his works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra, and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, among others.  Having conducted nearly 2,000 works, Maestro Laycock has also developed a reputation for being able to conduct a large number of works successfully at short notice; such programmes have included Brahms’ Symphonies No 1 and No 4 (conducted from memory), Orff’s Carmina Burana, Strauss’ monumental Ein Heldenleben and a full production of Carmen which was exceptionally well received by audience and critics alike.

Maestro Laycock was Music Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, transforming a small chamber ensemble into a full and critically acclaimed professional symphony orchestra.  Together they were awarded Citations of Excellence for two consecutive years from the State Arts Council of New Jersey for ‘exhibiting the highest standards of artistic excellence.’

Mark Laycock and his family currently make their home in Berlin.

May 2013

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