10/13/2026
January 12, 1957- October 10, 2026
The Northeast Ohio music community mourns the passing of Mark Gonder, an extraordinarily gifted musician and teacher. To those who knew him as a colleague, you knew him as a consummate professional, fluent in all styles and genres, utterly reliable, and a supportive, joyful bandmate. To those who knew him as a teacher, you knew him to be encouraging, enlightening, patient, and generous. To those who knew him as a friend, you knew him to be loyal, funny, meticulous, and deeply spiritual. To those who knew him in all three ways, you knew you were fortunate.
Mark grew up in Akron and was one of the original crew Roland Paolucci assembled to form the Akron Jazz Workshop, an incubator for an astonishing array of talented musicians, many of whom later joined the University of Akron Jazz Studies Program.
Mark married his wife, Susan, on November 27, 1980, and together moved to New York City, where he worked as an active freelance musician for 10 years. During that decade, on Jim Rupp’s recommendation, he toured the world with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, performing in South America, Europe, and Japan.
Upon his return to Northeast Ohio in 1990, he accepted a position in the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, which he maintained with distinction for 17 years, performing with Bill Holman, Bob Brookmeyer, Bob Florence, Maria Schneider,
Gerald Wilson, and many other top arrangers and composers in the Jazz idiom. He joined the faculty of the University of Akron in 1998 and remained in that capacity until 2019. While at UA, the Faculty Jazz Quartet performed hundreds of concerts for the Children’s Concert Society throughout Summit County. He also played with the Jazz Unit almost continuously for 25 years, recording the remarkable album Choices, featuring Dave Morgan's music. He was an esteemed teacher at the Hudson/Fairlawn School of Music, along with its founder Kurt Reed, one of Mark’s closest friends.
Selecting just a few highlights from such a long and extensive career is difficult, but here’s a short list. He recorded the album Pacific with Pat Pace and Bob Fraser in 1978. In 2002, he performed a concert with the Jazz Unit of Frank Zappa's music at the Tri-C Jazz Festival with saxophonist Ernie Watts. In 2005, as a member of the University of Akron Faculty Jazz Quartet, he performed in Akron’s sister city, Chemnitz, Germany, on a 10-day goodwill tour. In 2009, the Faculty Jazz Quartet participated in a UA-initiated program to establish an exchange with the Federal University of Minas Gerais and spent two weeks in and around Belo Horizonte, Brazil, performing concerts and master classes. In 2015, the UA Faculty Jazz Quartet was invited by the U.S. State Department to perform at the dedication of the new American Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, and to play several concerts in Casablanca, Fez, Khouribga, and Rabat.
Mark was a member of Local 4, Cleveland Federation of Musicians.
Per his request, there will be no services.
