Mark Rimple
Today on the podcast we’re talking to Mark Rimple - musician, educator, composer, performer, union member, father and all around deep thinker. I met Mark through my brother Robert. They’re colleagues in the music department at West Chester College in Pennsylvania.
Mark is one of those people who has a passion for learning. It’s evident from the earliest moments of his life when a young friend introduced him to The Beatles and he never looked back. He absorbed music into his soul and became an accomplished guitarist with a deep love for medieval and renaissance music.
In this conversation we talk about teaching. About the relationship between teacher and student. About the inherent problems of a pay for play system that creates an inverted hierarchy in the classroom and puts a premium on grades rather than learning. We talk about the challenges that two years of Covid presents in the classroom. Mark spent many years involved in union work, advocating for his colleagues in an environment that hasn’t always treated its members with the respect and dignity they deserve. Union work allowed Mark to feel like he was making a difference, especially in a world where problems often feel too big and unwieldly to do much about.
But my favorite part of this conversation is the discovery that despite working in different disciplines, Mark and I do much the same thing. We teach people to listen. We talk about how critical it is to learn to hear the music of life, from the harmonious tones to the dissident ones, and our shared belief that it is only in learning to listen to one another that we will truly heal what ails us.
Mark Rimple is a composer, lutenist and countertenor in addition to his many other talents. His work has garnered critical notice for his interpretation of early music from national newspapers and journals including the Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Early Music America, and Early Music (UK). He principally plays medieval and Renaissance lute, archlute, gittern, citole, psaltery, cittern, and viol.
He is a founding member of the vocal-instrumental ensemble TREFOIL. Mark has recorded early and new music as countertenor and lutenist with the Newberry Consort, Trefoil, Seven Times Salt, and Cygnus Ensemble and has performed with The Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and Curtis Orchestra (on mandolin), The Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra (lute), Network for New Music (lute, guitar, mandolin) and The Philadelphia Classical Symphony (guitar).
Mark earned his Doctorate and Masters degrees from Temple University and his Bachelors degree from University of the Arts. He is a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at The Wells School of Music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
You can learn more about him by visiting his website.
