Award-winning New York City-based bassist and composer Mark Lewandowski originally hails from Nottingham, England. A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London and New York’s prestigious Juilliard School, he has earned the respect of his peers and elders alike as a creative, supportive and individual sideman and bandleader.
It was during his years at the Guildhall School that Mark began rapidly producing a name for himself as a fixture of the London jazz scene, playing regularly at the world-famous Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club by only his second year in the capital. After graduating with a first class honors degree from the Guildhall School, Mark had the great honor of being awarded the Yamaha Jazz Award, which was presented to him by the government of the U.K. at the Houses of Parliament. He has performed in many of the leading concert halls and clubs of the U.K. and Europe, including The Barbican, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, The Queen Elizabeth Hall and Pizza Express Jazz Club.
Lewandowski has also performed frequently as a member of the quartet of Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, including performances in such esteemed venues and festivals as London’s Barbican Hall, Cheltenham Festival and The Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.
He has toured internationally in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America, and is frequently found on many of New York City’s famed stages including those of The Blue Note, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Village Vanguard, Birdland, The Jazz Standard, 55 Bar, Smalls, Mezzrow, Smoke and Minton’s Playhouse.
2022 saw Lewandowski again on the international stage, as first-prize winner of the prestigious UNISA International Jazz Strings Competition held in Pretoria, South Africa. In this fortieth year of the competition’s existence, he was awarded the prize by South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki.
As an educator, Lewandowski is on the faculty of the renowned Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz Studies at the University of Hartford, Connecticut. He has taught in a number of major institutions including Torino Conservatory (Italy) and Birmingham Conservatoire (U.K.), as well as in his position as ‘Professor of Bass Studies’ at the prestigious Hampton School. Mark has led workshops during cultural exchange visits to China in front of 2,000 elementary school children. He also has worked with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People and Essentially Ellington programs in and around New York City.