Markus Mars

Markus' musical journey began in the 1980s in the Austrian Alps. Trained in classical violin from an early age, his exploration soon expanded into jazz, rock, blues, world fusion, electronica, conducting, and composition for chamber and symphonic orchestras.

In the early 2000s, Markus began focusing on non-classical music. As part of the Hollywood Music in Media Award-winning progressive EDM duo Fatmagic, he released multiple albums, received chart recognition, toured internationally, and performed across more than 30 countries with artists, bands, DJs, and orchestras.

In 2015, a new chapter opened on the volcanic island of Hawaiʻi. A deep creative retreat in the jungles of Puna led to the release of Interdimensional under his alter ego Son of Mars. The album fused electronic world music with live instrumentation, symphonic textures, bass-heavy beats, custom 5-string electric violin, and telescopic didgeridoo, gathering 15 years of composition fragments into one transformational body of work.

A pivotal shift occurred in 2018, when the Kīlauea eruption buried an entire neighborhood under lava. This rupture led to a more nomadic existence and a deeper artistic reflection on impermanence, transformation, and the relationship between sound, place, and presence.

Rather than treating music as fixed composition, Markus began working with sound as something fluid: emerging, dissolving, and transforming in direct relationship with the present. Pre-composed pieces gave way to real-time creation, allowing music to form through listening, interconnection, and response.

Each performance is a unique, unrepeatable event. Using a destructive recording method, every sound is permanent, captured exactly as it happened, with nothing to retrieve or undo. Just as a sound in nature cannot be recalled once it dissolves into silence, what is played exists only as it happens.

Today, Markus’ work unfolds through three complementary forms: live performance, site-responsive sound art, and Sonic Flow.

His concert work is immersive and unpredictable, often moving through tension, eruption, stillness, beauty, turbulence, and transformation. A performance may begin in silence and dissolve into chaos, or emerge as a vast cinematic landscape of electric violin, voice, textures, loops, and sound design. He does not know in advance where the music will go. That uncertainty is part of the performance itself.

In site-responsive sound art, Markus enters into conversation with the environment itself. Natural sounds become part of the work — not as background, but as living elements within the composition. Wind, birds, water, insects, weather, acoustics, and the atmosphere of a place are listened to, responded to, and woven into the recording as the piece unfolds.

Sonic Flow is the meditative form: a live sound journey created to soften the body, slow the breath, and invite deep listening. It is still improvised, still unrepeatable, but oriented toward breath, presence, nervous-system settling, and inner attunement.

All three forms arise from the same foundation: deep preparation, sound design, signal flow, and years of refinement — so that, in performance, nothing stands between listening, impulse, and sound. Markus’ work lives between creation and destruction, silence and eruption, the deeply meditative and the viscerally alive. He does not compose toward a destination. He returns, again and again, to the present.

Related links:

• EPK
• References
• Testimonials

Influential Teachers

Andi Schreiber (improv), Andrea Mugrauer (violin), Benjamin Zenk (critical thinking), Brigitte Duftschmid (violin), Brittany Haas (fiddle), Bruce Molsky (old-time fiddle), Casey Driessen (fiddle), Darol Anger (fiddle), Jack Kornfield (Vipassanā meditation), Jiko Nakade (Sōtō Zen), Mark O'Connor (fiddle), Mark Wood (electric violin), Sat. Khadga Bahadur Karki (Vipassanā), S. N. Goenka (Vipassanā), Thich Nhat Hanh (Engaged Buddhism), Tim Freeman (philosophy), Tscho Theissing (violin, improv).

Influential Bands and Artists

Abel Selaocoe, AC/DC, Adham Shaikh, Al Jarreau, Andrew Bird, Bob Marley, Brian Eno, Chick Corea, Deep Purple, Hannah Peel, Harold Budd, Hidden Orchestra, Jean-Luc Ponty, Jimi Hendrix, Pauline Anna Tuell Strom, Philip Glass, Shpongle, Steve Reich, Steve Roach, Trentemøller, Van Halen.

Notable Achievements

• 14 live albums
• Solo electronic album Interdimensional (Son of Mars, Merkaba Music)
• Performed in 30 countries with over 60 bands, DJs, and orchestras, playing more than 2,000 shows
• Two-time Hollywood Music in Media Award winner
• MondoTunes Music Award winner
• Collaborations with Grammy Award-winning producers Warren Huart and Evren Goknar at Capitol Records
• Released internationally acclaimed albums Connecting Continents and Connecting Worlds (Fatmagic)
• 25 years of live and studio work in Europe and the USA with internationally renowned artists
• Co-founder of award-winning music academy Vocals on Stage™, Los Angeles