Mark's profile
Sonic architect, musician, composer, and audio engineer, Mark Kent Navarro employs his diverse skill to craft immersive and evocative worlds. Capitalizing on his background in electronic, jazz, classical, avant-garde, ambient, pop, math-rock, post-rock, and alternative music, Mark's commitment is to delve into the nuances of his work. His dedication to innovation and growth is a consistent theme throughout his artistic journey and life. As a Filipino born in Baltimore City, his narrative unfolds as that of an independent D.I.Y. artist who continues to blur genre boundaries and explore diverse mediums on his creative horizon. His story is a testament to the resilience and creative spirit that defines his unique path. Mark was declared a finalist for the Bakers Artist Awards in both 2023 and 2025.
Mark is a Filipino-American musician and sound artist rooted in Baltimore City's vibrant music scene. Growing up with early musical influences from his grandmother, he first explored his passion for music by forming a post-rock/math-rock band, Yugennui, with close-friends during his high school years, establishing Mark early on.
As a member of A.S.H. (Ambient Sound Healing), Navarro performs improvised compositions on electric guitar, Japanese koto, and electronics alongside Daoure Diongue’s saxophone, percussion, and Senegalese ngoni, underscoring Ellery Bryan’s digitized 16mm films to create multimedia improvisations on grief and cultural identity. He additionally co-performed with Abdu Mongo Ali at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2026.
His recent film compositions demonstrate his involved understanding of narrative acuity. His composition for Kelley Settles' documentary, ‘Eternal Lotus The Journey of Black Women in Buddhism’ (2024) embodies Buddhist principles by utilizing minimalist compositions centered around digitally manipulated singing bowls over bass guitar. This restraint in composition reflects the journey of the people in the film.
Navarro collaborates extensively with his sibling, visual artist Kat Navarro,composing scores that explore their shared Filipino-American identity. Their installation, When You Arrive, showcased at Towson University's gallery, features his original composition Kalapati (2023), which weaves pre-colonial Filipino musical elements with contemporary Manila soundscapes and family oral histories. The animated short, Bug Box (2022) earned recognition at the 2022 Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival and screened at the 2024 Maryland Film Festival
His theatrical sound design demonstrates versatility across emotional topographies. For Truepenny Projects’ Lyra & The Ferocious Beast (2023) at The Voxel, Navarro crafted an original score that supported Tatiana Nya Ford’s science-fiction epic of a girl marooned on a planet with a nearly extinct alien species. At The Vagabond Players, his sound design for Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive (2024) enhanced the play’s exploration of trauma and resilience in 1969 rural Maryland. His work on Meghan Tyler’s Crocodile Fever (2024) at The Strand Theatre created an atmospheric horror soundscape set in a surreal 1989 Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Additionally, his sonic design for Perisphere Theater’s production of Lauren Gunderson’s Silent Sky (2026) deepened the sense of scientific discovery and emotional intimacy. In AJ Clauss’ Salty (2025), another Truepenny Projects production, he composed an original score and sound design that amplified the surreal urgency of climate catastrophe through the quiet perseverance of two penguins in a conservation zoo in a dystopian future.
Navarro's journey is a commitment to harmonizing culture with contemporary expression. He continues to explore the metamorphic power of sound while seeking to enrich his own bonds and understanding the roots of his cultural heritage.
