Contact
Departments
Music Theory and Musicianship
Education
MM Composition - San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2025)
BME Music Education - Pacific Lutheran University (2016)
Ensembles
Nebula Consort (current)
Cameo String Quartet (current)
Choir of the West - Pacific Lutheran University (2013–2016)
Courses Taught
First-Year Musicianship
Q&A
What is your hometown?
Seattle, Washington
Who were your major teachers?
David Conte, Alan Belkin, and Oliver Groenewald
What is a favorite quote that you repeatedly tell students?
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.
What question do you wish students would ask sooner rather than later?
How can I practice this?
What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?
Growing up in a musical family, I always knew that music would be a part of my life. However, I took a bit of a leap my junior year of high school — I joined the local youth symphony and youth chorus, and continued in the ensembles at my local high school. My senior year, I was in six choirs, two orchestras, and a string quartet! During this time, a couple of things became clear to me: music is a powerful way to build community, and it is one of the ways in which we can come the closest to truly understanding the experience of another person. When done well, music encourages empathy and, for me, was and still is the most direct way to communicate and be understood. Sign me up!
What was a turning point in your career?
I was working as a choir and orchestra teacher in Washington and built up the courage to email David Conte, asking if he would be willing to take on a composition student. It never hurts to ask! Just over two years later, I found myself enrolled at SFCM. Another two years, and here we are!
What is your daily practice routine?
Keyboard harmony, continuo practice, partimenti, memorize some music at the keyboard, improvise, score-reading, write my own partimenti to analyze and learn to speak the language of a piece I'm looking at on a given day; breath work and warm-ups for voice, practice vocal repertoire; cello technique, transcribing.
If you could play only three composers for the rest of your life, who would they be?
Claudio Monteverdi, Igor Stravinsky, and Henri Dutilleux.
What is your unrealized project?
Creating a community space for artists to collaborate, and learn with and from each other; three books of madrigals.
What do you think makes a concert experience unique?
Sincerity.
Biography
Max Marcus is a composer, arranger, tenor, cellist, conductor, and teacher originally from Seattle, Washington. Max is a recent graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he studied composition with David Conte. Other teachers have included Alan Belkin (Montreal), James Knapp and Oliver Groenewald (Seattle).
Max’s musical influences span centuries and genres—Monteverdi, Stravinsky, Fauré, Lili Boulanger, Percy Grainger, Henri Dutilleux, Gil Evans, Maria Schneider, and many others, including those of his teachers, family, and friends.
Choral music has been central throughout his life: from the Seattle Children’s Chorus and his school ensembles to Pacific Lutheran University’s Choir of the West, and now as a singer with Nebula Consort.