Mark Wildman received his early formal musical education at The King’s School, Gloucester and as a chorister in Gloucester Cathedral where he studied and sang under Dr Herbert Sumsion. Later on, he studied at The Royal Academy of Music under the guidance of Henry Cummings, Rex Stephens, Tom Hammond and Norman Feasey and later on with Rupert Bruce Lockhart. He was awarded the Westmorland Scholarship, the Academy Recital Diploma and the Frederick Shinn Fellowship. His career began as a Choral Exhibitioner at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, where he sang for three years which was followed by a similar period with the BBC Singers with whom he travelled and performed world-wide.
2013 marked Mark’s fortieth and final season on the concert platform as a recitalist and soloist in Oratorio. His last concert being in Huddersfield Town Hall with the Huddersfield Choral Society, in Handel’s Israel in Egypt, forty years after his debut in that hall. He travelled and performed throughout Europe, Scandanavia, the British Isles and the USA, performing with many of Britain’s foremost orchestras and with several leading conductors of the day, among them Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Sir Neville Marriner, Meredith Davies, Donald Hunt, Michael Gielen, Jane Glover, Christopher Robinson, John Sanders and Sir David Willcocks. He now devotes himself entirely to teaching and working with young singers at the Royal Academy of Music and at Shrewsbury School. For almost thirty years he served as an examiner, trainer and moderator for ABRSM and has served as an external examiner for Royal College of Music, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Wales International Academy of Voice and Royal Northern College of Music where he is currently serving as an external specialist examiner in Vocal Studies.
Since 1982 he has combined a busy performing career with that of a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music where he was appointed to the Vocal Faculty in 1982 and subsequently as Head of Vocal Studies in 1991. He has taught prize winners in some of the most prominent British and Overseas singing awards: Cardiff Singer of the World, the Tenor Vinas Contest in Barcelona, the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Awards, the Royal Overseas League, the National Mozart Competition, and the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary. Many of his current and former students are now singing principal roles with national and international opera companies including La Scala Milan, the Bolshoi, Moscow, St Petersburg, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Vienna State Opera, English National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Hannover Staatsoper, Staatsoper Hamburg, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is a much-travelled adjudicator and has served as a jury member at several international singing competitions. He has visited Holland, Germany, USA, Iceland, France and Spain to give Masterclasses. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 1994, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1995, and a Professor in the University of London in 2013. He was twice elected President of the RAM Club. In August 2017 on his retirement as Head of Vocal Studies, the Principal conferred upon him the title of Henry Cummings Distinguished Professor of Singing.