Biography

Dr. Mark Doerries is the Head of the Graduate Conducting Studio and an Associate Professor in the Practice of Conducting for Sacred Music at Notre Dame at the University of Notre Dame. Doerries serves as the Artistic Director of the Notre Dame Children's Choir, Children’s Organ Training Program, and the Sacred Music Academy, the community engagement arm of Sacred Music at Notre Dame. 

Doerries’ recent  engagements include appearances with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, Saint Mary’s College Women’s Choir Festival, the Girls’ Choir Festival of the Diocese of Leeds, UK, the Bishop Reicher Choral Festival in Waco, TX, the diocese of Cleveland Children’s Choir Festival, and performances with the Jessica Lang Dance Company, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, the Organ Historical Society, Indiana Music Educators’ Association annual conference, National Pastoral Musicians’ Association Conference, Circle the State with Song, the College of New Jersey Chamber Singers, Ampleforth College Choir, and at venues including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX, and Washington National Cathedral and the Basilica of the National Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Doerries has led students and ensembles on tours through major cathedrals in the United States and United Kingdom. 

With the Notre Dame Children's Choir, Doerries recorded five albums: O Emmanuel, released in the fall of 2016, debuted at #1 on Billboard's Chart of Traditional Classical Music; O Day of Peace, released in the spring of 2017, a collection of hymn arrangements; Arturo Sandoval’s Christmas at Notre Dame (conductor and producer) is a collaboration with 10-time GRAMMY winner and jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval; Magnificat: Evening Prayer with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, a collection of commissioned Vespers and Evensong liturgies; and A Ceremony of Carols, a recording of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols.

Doerries has commissioned and premiered over 35 works by composers such as Caroline Shaw, Phillip Moore, Mark Miller, J.J. Wright, Stephen Mager, John Duggan, Ruth Boshkoff, Evelylne Currenton-Simpson, Alex Mansour, John Liberatore, and Daniel Justin. He is the founding editor of the Notre Dame Children's Choir Choral Series, published by MorningStar Music Publishers/ ECS Publishing Group, and appears on the Universal Music Group, Arsis Records, and Dynamic Catholic recording labels. 

Doerries is also the co-recipient of a $1.6 million Lilly Endowment Grant for sacred music and a $500,000 Presidential Award that support the Sacred Music Academy, Notre Dame Children’s Choir, Children’s Organ Training Program, and graduate studies in Sacred Music at Notre Dame. He was recognized by the Chamber of Commerce of the City of South Bend for his work at the University and in the community with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir and inducted into the 2019 class of 40 Under 40 leaders in the region. 

Past presentations include engagements with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, American Choral Directors Association National Conference, the Modern Language Association, Festival 500 Choral Symposium, and a TEDx Talk in 2015 titled, What If Children Were More Than Cute? Doerries’ research on chemosynthetic deep-sea ecosystems is published in the journals Deep-Sea Research and Marine Ecology.

Doerries founded the Luminescence Project in 2004 for the composition and performance of multi-sensory music. The Luminescence Project has performed in the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival and the Bloomington Arts Festival with additional installations mounted in New York City, Vancouver, Kansas City, and Los Angeles. Original productions include staged performances of PASSIONATE CONVICTIONS, an electrified rock oratorio based on JS Bach's St. John Passion, and Dreaming in Darkness, a vocal music and light-art production.

Doerries previously served as the Director of Choral and Vocal Music at Olney Central College and as Music Director of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis before his appointment to the University of Notre Dame.

• O Emmanuel, Notre Dame Children's Choir (2015), #1 on  Billboard's Chart of Traditional Classical Music, Dynamic Catholic Records
• O Day of Peace, Notre Dame Children's Choir (2015), Sacred Music Academy Records
• Arturo Sandoval's Christmas at Notre Dame (2018), Universal Music
• Magnificat: Evening Prayer with the Notre Dame Children's Choir (2019), Arsis Records
• A Ceremony of Carols, (2021), Finalist for the American Prize, Sacred Music Academy Records

• BS, College of William and Mary (Music, Biology) 2003
• MM, Temple University, 2007
• DM, Indiana University, 2013