Origin Records Artist Mark Ivester

Mark is a versatile drummer/percussionist with extensive experience in many different idioms from pop-rock to big band to jazz to orchestral settings.

He has performed with many national jazz artists including Larry Coryell, Freddie Hubbard, Diane Schuur, Mose Allison, Charlie Byrd and Eartha Kitt. He is currently performing and recording with the Jovino Santos Neto quartet, Sonando, and The Nick Manson trio.

In the classical field, Mark has performed with the Honolulu, Spokane and Walla Walla Symphony Orchestras. Mark is a founding member of the professional percussion ensemble "Happy Hammers". This group performs percussion music of various ethnic influences including steel drums of Trinidad, African drumming of the Ewe and Yoruba tribes, Afro-Cuban drumming, Brazilian samba and American jazz on mallet keyboard instruments.

Mark earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Eastern Washington University. He did undergraduate and graduate work in ethnomusicology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu which included field study of gamelan in Java. He has taught privately since 1973 and has been on the faculties of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Spokane Falls Community College, Highline Community College and Olympic College, Bremerton.