MARK KENT NAVARRO
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Sonic architect, composer, music producer, and audio engineer, Mark Kent Navarro employs his diverse musical skills to craft immersive 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 denes his unique path.
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.
Today, as a key member of A.S.H. (Ambient Sound Healing), Navarro performs improvised compositions on the Japanese Koto alongside Daoure Diongue's Senegalese Ngoni, accompanying Ellery Bryan's digitized 16mm films to create multimedia meditations on grief and cultural identity.
His recent film compositions demonstrate his involved understanding of narrative acuity. His composition for Kelley Settles' documentary 'Eternal Lotus,' (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. Their animated short 'Bug Box' (2022) earned recognition at the 2022 Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival and screened at the 2024 Maryland Film Festival.
Mark was declared a finalist for the Bakers Artist Awards in both 2023 and 2025 through the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.
His theatrical sound design demonstrates versatility across genres and 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 powerful 'How I Learned to Drive' (2024) enhanced the play's exploration of trauma and resilience during the setting of 1969 rural Maryland, while his work on Meghan Tyler's 'Crocodile Fever' (2024) at The Strand Theatre created an atmospheric horror soundscape of a surreal 1989 Northern Ireland during The Troubles.
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.
