About

Ethan Marks is an experimental trumpet player and producer based in Los Angeles. He is interested in the collision between body and instrument, the instrument-as-interface, and the physical manifestations of sound. Much of the sounds he explores are similarly physical, subtle, and often otherwise overlooked. His work is usually improvised, is sometimes silly, and has involved sundry preparations like feedback, video, noise, household objects, power tools, and plundered recordings.

Marks is active within the LA experimental music community as a performer and producer, and he frequently collaborates with many of its members and organizations. Between 2022–2024, he directed a DIY noise series, Sounds Poetic, in the heart of downtown LA, and he currently co-directs High Desert Soundings, in Wonder Valley, outside of Joshua Tree National Park. He has also served as a guest producer for the Dogstar Orchestra Festival. Marks has performed at the Getty, LACMA, MOCA, Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT, the Los Angeles Theatre, Diag0nal, Oracle Egg, Automata, Coaxial, Betalevel, Art Share L.A., Highways Performance Space, and Santa Monica Public Library, among others.

In addition to his work in LA, Marks has presented internationally at the Seoul Institute of the Arts, dotolim, the Darmstadt Fereinkurse für Neue Musik, and the International Society for Improvised Music 2016 Conference in Guelph, Canada. Marks holds degrees in trumpet performance from California Institute of the Arts (MFA 2017) and The University of Texas at Austin (BM 2013).

When not playing the trumpet and producing shows, Ethan can be found in the video rooms of Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, reading scores and operating supertitles for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Click here for full CV