A versatile performer and composer, Mark Duggan has been active in multiple musical genres for over 40 years. Based in Toronto, Canada, Duggan's passionate blend of contemporary percussion idioms has impressed audiences worldwide, ranging from the Tongyeong Music Festival in Korea and Lincoln Center in New York, to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Duggan has performed with many jazz and popular music artists including Diana Krall, Charlie Haden, Maria Schneider, Petula Clark, Kiran Ahluwalia, Maryem Tollar, Andy Stochansky, Nelly Furtado, Oliver Schroer, Don Ross, Kevin Barrett, Rufus Wainwright and for ten years, performed and recorded extensively with his own group, Vuja dé. He has been deeply involved with Brazilian music for over twenty years performing and/or recording with Celso Machado, Guinga, Henrique Cazes, Wagner Petrilli, Pedro Quental, Marco Tulio and Rogerio Souza among others. Duggan performs regularly in the musical theatre scene with local Toronto and touring productions including Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, Crazy for You, Fame, Jolson, Jane Eyre, Fame Becomes Me, Mamma Mia, Legally Blonde, Les Miserables, Evita, Wizard of Oz, Bat Out of Hell and Motown. As a session musician, Duggan has played on dozens of film and commercial soundtracks and has appeared on over 100 other recordings. He has released five CDs of his own music which have received multiple award nominations from both the Juno and East Coast Music Awards.
Duggan holds an MFA in percussion from the California Institute of the Arts where he studied with John Bergamo, Charlie Haden and James Newton, and a DMA in performance from the University of Toronto where he studied with Russell Hartenberger and Robin Engelman. Duggan currently teaches at the University of Toronto.
"Duggan is an artist of the first rank, one who thinks way beyond the notes to liberate the music within."
(Chronicle Herald)